


Slipstream

by avidita



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Cliffhangers, Clintasha - Freeform, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dom/sub, Fix-It, Graphic Descriptions of Injuries, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Sacrifice, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Submission, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Temporary Character Death, Thorki - Freeform, Under-negotiated Kink, and people being really bad at it, and trying to ignore that, but no Laura bashing, but not really, just sooo much self-sacrifice, kind of, porn only in the very last chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-04-30 20:58:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 39,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14505360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avidita/pseuds/avidita
Summary: Loki made a deal with Death.Now he needs to gather any resources he can, and run after Thanos to fulfill his side of that deal.He has a plan.Well. About one twelfth of a plan.Meanwhile, Clint tries to keep it together. His own mind, and everything else. Easy.





	1. Sprint through the Valley

**Author's Note:**

> If ever a movie demanded a fix-it, at least to tide us over...
> 
> Main Point of View will switch between Loki and Clint. Note that I will fix all the things that bugged me, apart from Gamora's "death".
> 
> Also note that some truly heavy kink comes into play at the end, and therefore the rating will most likely go up to Explicit. Additional kink tags will be added once I post that chapter!

“If I may trouble you for a small additional favour, which would make my task so much easier - I am quite sure the location I was last in does not provide the safety of a spaceship anymore.”  
Loki bowed slightly to try to signify that he very well knew of the audacity of his request.

Death had been very accommodating so far, appearing humanoid and even relatively pleasing to the eyes, but he knew he was already stretching their agreement.

Death’s smile was pearly white, the brightest point in their vague and constantly shifting immediate surroundings.  
WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BE?

Loki hoped Death was amused, but his neck hair didn’t concur, and all his gut told him was a frantic repetitive request to run away run away run.

Loki swallowed, smiled back, and said:  
“Wherever the last of the Valkyrior can be found, if you would be so very kind.”

The white smile in the darkness looked amused, even fond, but Loki couldn’t trust his usual criteria, not here, and the violent glint in Death’s black eyes rather seemed to hint at a furious rage.  
Loki blinked, squinting slightly to try and find out where he got that from, since there was so little to see, and even less he could actually pinpoint in his mind, but when he blinked once more, he had already left Death’s realm.

He slowly straightened up, taking a deep breath to try and banish the full body shiver that threatened to break out.  
“I thank you, Honored One”, he said in a low voice, while taking in his surroundings, jarring in their bright lights, garish colors and dissonant noises.

It was a bar. Another deep breath, half annoyance, half shuddering relief. He was back.

 

Brunnhilde was still in her silver and blue, hair however braided away from her face again, eyelids drooping, lips sneering at Loki’s approach.

“Weren’t you supposed to find the Lady Sif?” Loki sat down next to her and waved for a drink for himself.

“Aren’t you supposed to keep our king safe and in good counsel?”

Loki ordered mead, then stared at his hands for a moment.  
Mentally shaking himself out of the beginning of true stupor, he turned to her with a smile.

The Valkyrie was already frowning, far too perceptive still for the amount of checkmarks on her drink tally.  
She threw a thumb to the right behind her, and indeed, there was Sif, arm-wrestling a poor, clueless Kree.

Loki nodded. A glance to Brunnhilde’s eyes confirmed that she already knew something was very, very wrong.  
He sighed.  
“My apologies. I am not easily shaken, and usually at least better at hiding it.”

“I’m well aware. What happened?”

Loki put a hand on her arm and said:  
“Listen carefully: I have a plan - well, half of a plan - how to undo what happened.”

Brunnhilde simply frowned harder. She straightened up from her slumped-over previous position and started glaring.  
“Loki?”

“We were attacked. We-”  
He ducked the chair before he even registered it consciously as a projectile coming at him. It crashed over the counter into the bottles lined across from them, and the bartender roared a protest.  
Loki was already ducking the next two attacks from the Lady Sif, who was clearly deeper into alcoholic oblivion than Brunnhilde. The Valkyrie pulled Sif back, away from Loki, who lifted both hands.  
“Peace, Sif.”

“I told you, he helped us!”

“You don’t know him like I do! I don’t know what he did exactly, and how he got back Thor’s ear, but he cannot be trusted!”  
Sif reared up like an untamed horse, Brunnhilde holding back both of her arms, letting her kick vaguely into Loki’s direction, both of them screaming at each other.  
Loki truly missed Bunnhilde’s little magnetic helpers.

He went and paid the barkeep for the damage, while Brunnhilde jockeyed Sif out of the bar.

 

Wherever they were, outside it was a bright day, and the wide streets were busy with colorful crowds.  
Following the Valkyrie and her furious Asgardian freight to the small ex-Sakaarian pleasure cruiser should have given Loki ample time to ready a story, or at least a good way to present the facts.

Brunnhilde simply sat down in the cockpit and asked: “Where to?”

Sif however was at Loki’s throat in seconds.  
“On no, no! We are not following his orders!”

Brunnhilde sighed.

Loki said: “Asgard.” He stared at Sif with a small smile, finding he didn’t even mind how close she was to call back recent and very unhappy memories of choking. She was Asgardian. A formidable fighter. And alive.  
The smile died quickly.

Sif squinted at him.  
“Asgard was destroyed. Brunnhilde reported everything.” She blinked. “Although she didn’t know how Odin died.” She squinted harder. “I bet you know.”

Loki swallowed, then gently freed himself from her distracted grasp.  
“I do. But we have larger problems right now.”

Brunnhilde, flying the ship, had her back to them, and even though her posture was relaxed, even slumped again, one foot on the middle console, one arm over the back rest, Loki could tell how tightly sprung every muscle in her body truly was.

“Asgard was destroyed, yes. The city, but now also the Ark. We were attacked by Thanos. He… destroyed everything.” Loki could see Sif’s eyes widen and quickly lifted a hand.  
“But I have a way of getting them back. Ah, not the city, but the Ark and our people - those that were on it at least.”

Sif started sneering and opened her mouth, but Loki put a hand on her shoulder and implored her.

“Sif, either he k- he killed Thor, or worse, he took him. And I have one way to get them back. One single way. We cannot fail at this.”

Brunnhilde’s fingers were drumming onto the arm rest.

Sif’s teeth clicked as she closed her mouth again.  
She scoffed: “Every time I think you cannot go farther in your schemes, you always find a way to go further beyond too far.”  
Thor’s warriors had always sobered up very quickly in the face of a new battle.

Brunnhilde asked from the cockpit:  
“Why Asgard, then? You hope to find something in the rubble?”

“Someone.” Loki went to sit down in the copilot’s chair.

Sif followed and slammed her fist against the doorway frame.  
“We are not following his orders! He cannot be trusted!”

“Yeah he can. At least where his brother is concerned. Sit, sister.”

Sif leaned over Brunnhilde’s backrest and snarled: “Especially not where Thor is concerned! He’s always been jealous and vindictive! And he-”

Loki tuned her out, staring at the stars outside and reassuring himself that Sif was a necessary side effect of getting the Valkyrie at his side.  
Although they had lost their battle against Hela, the Valkyrior were still a formidable force, and Brunnhilde would be a valuable asset, at least in buying himself enough time.

 

He leaned forward and put his face in his hands.  
He needed a full-fledged plan, or at least more figures in the game to go with the flow of chaos without simply drowning in it.  
Old ones, he had nothing.  
And every second that passed was time Thor possibly spent in the hands and at the whim of Thanos.  
No, he did have something: He had a Valkyrie and one of Thor’s warriors. He knew where to get a third fighter - if that worked out... He had knowledge: Of earth and its heroes, and that they should not but probably would be severely underestimated. Where to get a weapon that could defeat Thanos. How to call to the Tesseract and the Aether, and that Thanos had no idea he was still alive. Alive again. Temporarily.  
This was not enough to win.  
It would have to suffice to find a way to win anyway.

Brunnhilde and Sif had stopped arguing and were looking at him.  
Loki sat up straight again and smiled at them, eyebrows lifted in innocent question. Sif scoffed and crossed her arms.

 

Brunnhilde asked:  
“Who do you hope to find in the ashes of Asgard?”  
She looked tired, probably guessing already.

“Hela.”

Sif said: “Hela was killed by Sutur.” She looked to Brunnhilde for confirmation, who nodded, not turning her gaze from Loki. “And you said the Golden City was her source of power, so either way: She’s dead.”

“I have it on incredibly good authority that she is, in fact, not.”


	2. Dig up the bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They found the wolf first.

They found the wolf first.

Fenrir was just as large and hairy as when they had last seen him. Loki supposed that being submerged in the waters of Asgard provided some protection of the fire of Sutur. Or, more likely, the rules of physics didn’t apply to Fenrir's pelt.

 

The Valkyrie tapped her feet against the steering wheel in thought and said:  
“Yeah, that won’t fit on board.”

Loki leaned forward and tried to find out if the wolf was, as he suspected, not just floating around between the rubble, steam and smoke, but curled around his mistress.  
“He should be able to change size”, he mused. “If he were awake and amenable to cooperate...”

With a sigh he told Brunnhilde to get as close as she could and open one of the hatches.

 

Sif took his seat as he vacated it, instead of coming with him to help. But then, her wide eyes were taking in the hole in the universe, where Asgard used to be, and her silence had a quality that made her seem very small. Loki refrained from commenting.

 

They closed the door between the cockpit and the central room, and when Brunnhilde opened the left hatch, the air exploded out - though much slower than it would have in completely open space. Apparently there was some atmosphere left.  
Farther away there were bits of stone still shining with heat, and even flickers of flame.

Leaning out of the hatch once he could let go of the security grip, Loki wondered idly if the eternal flame would burn on forever here.

 

He didn’t really want to jump over to the wolf, so he tried flicking some witchfire at the beast. In the shaggy, grey and black mess of fur, a big green eye opened and stared at him.  
Loki invited Fenrir in with a wave, and when the wolf obligingly started to shrink, he pulled at him with a small bit of magic.  
It came to him quick and friendly, the power of Frigga. Not as easy a feat as it always had been in Asgard itself, but easier than usually, when away from it.

Some part of Asgard still lingered here, more than just rubble and smoke and a potentially devastating source of fire.

 

Once Fenrir had shrunk to about the size of a small horse, it became clear that yes, he had been curled around Hela. For a moment, Loki smiled. But when he’d closed the hatch, the room started to fill with air again, and he got a good look at her, the smile died quickly.

Her skin was like wet silk thrown haphazardly over a skeleton. Her clothes were mostly gone, parts of it melted into her form. Only her hair remained untouched, but then, the hair-care spells of Asgard were notoriously hard to break.

Loki crouched down in front of her. Fenrir stared at him, slowly baring his teeth.  
He glanced at the wolf, raised a hand and said “Peace.”  
Then he extended the hand towards Hela and gently suffused her with healing magic.

Her teeth were already bared, the skin drawn back tightly. Her eyes had been sunk in to the point where Loki had wondered if her eyeballs still existed, but when her lids suddenly drew back, her eyes were startlingly clear and bright.

 

“Peace”, Loki said again. He had wondered how he would play this, but he hadn’t expect to have her this much at his mercy.  
“We thought you dead”, he said, while keeping up the steady stream of healing. “Do not mistake me: We wanted you dead. And it is because of you that Asgard is no more. But I can offer you healing, and a chance to redeem yourself.”

A strange sound emanated from her throat. Loki sighed and said:  
“Yes, I am truly desperate to come to you for help.” The fates had a peculiar sense of humor.  
He concentrated his healing on her throat, until the rasp was a perceptible giggle.

Hela croaked:  
“You must be shit at deals.”

 

Loki’s heart still beat to the drum of absolute terror of being behind the final threshold. When he blinked, he could still see the twin stars of furious eyes in the darkness. And the dull throb in his guts was actually kind of hoping that Thor was dead, and that they wouldn’t see each other again, once Thor and their people were resurrected.

He had no idea how to even begin to apologize for this one. He’d had no other choice left, and he’d actually done his best, but he knew, oh he knew in Thor’s eyes, he’d done the worst mistake of his life, the most egregious offence he could have done.

He’d chosen an alive and well Thor over one that would ever forgive him.

 

Brunnhilde asked over the Comms: “Are we good? Can we open the door?”

Loki lifted an eyebrow at Hela’s half-restored face.

“Peace”, she agreed.


	3. Slow down your heartbeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nidavellir was dark.

“One question, if I may: Why should the Tesseract obey... you.”  
Hela looked much better. She still looked slightly mummified, but at least she had lips again, and a nose. Brunnhilde’s clothes hung off her bony shoulders, but with every passing moment, her skin color went further away from grey.

In the back of his mind, Loki was calculating how likely it was that she knew her power did not come from Asgard-the-place, and how likely it was that he’d be able to keep her away from Asgard-the-people, once they had been resurrected.  
After all, if two and a half Asgardian were already giving her this much energy, she’d be unstoppable the moment she reconnected with the whole people.

“The Tesseract doesn’t obey, in general. I think the gauntlet is forcing it. As long as I had it in my possession, we… had an understanding.”

The area of Hela’s face that should have housed an eyebrow raised slightly.  
“The gems are cognizant?”

Sif waved the topic to the side and leaned forward, both arms on the round table.  
“Never mind why a specific stone would cooperate. Why should she?”  
She pointed at Hela.  
“I realize she’s the eldest sibling. She had a right to challenge her brothers for the throne - she did that, she lost.”

Hela snorted.

Sif continued: “That does not make her our ally.”

“Oh, but the fact that she lost, does”, Brunnhilde disagreed. She was leaning back, one foot against the table, both arms crossed.  
“See, she wants to rule the multiverse. However, she can’t do that in the state she’s in. By now, she surely realized that the Golden City was not the key to her power, but Asgardians. She needs them back just as much as we do, if for completely different reasons.”

Hela smiled - a truly disconcerting picture.

Sif made to protest, but Brunnhilde righted her chair and stood up. “Don’t worry. She thinks she can win this, and she’ll be our ally as long as we need to get Asgard back. And then I will kill her.”

She walked out the room, back to the cockpit.

Hela was smirking after her. Then she turned to Loki, who had, with a new wave of tiredness, stricken ‘Does Hela know her powersource’ from his mental list.  
“Where were we. Oh yes! The gems are cognizant?”

“I don’t know for sure", Loki hedged. “I just know what I felt when I held the Tesseract, and it was an understanding. It will follow my lead.”

Sif, who’d released the tension in her shoulders at Brunnhilde’s promise to kill Hela, said:  
“It’s the only plan we have. Its holes are larger than the largest plan that I ever followed before, but then, I usually followed Thor, so…”

She shared a fond smile with Loki, who tried to ignore the massive pang in his chest. 

Either dead, or currently being tortured. He knew his preference: He rather thought of Thor behind the veil, meeting old friends, raising glasses in the hall of light. But he couldn’t bank on that, he couldn’t think he had all the time in the world when maybe, just maybe Thanos had seen some value in keeping Thor in his possession.  
If there was the slightest chance Thor was… there… Loki closed his eyes and tried to convince his heart that he was not in immediate danger.

The stars in the skylight above them turned in a slow circle - the Valkyrie was maneuvering them to start their journey to the next stop.

Hela tried to stand up and said: “No, wait, we need to take the flame with us!”

“No we don’t”, Loki said, but helped her stand up nonetheless. Her arm felt like bone only.

“What flame”, Sif asked, frowning.

Loki sighed. “The eternal one. That started Ragnarok, remember?”

Sif threw Loki a furious look. “Yes, I remember what I was told yesterday, but why would it still exist? Sutur died, after all.”  
Then she squinted her eyes at Hela. “By the way, how did she survive?”

Hela rolled her eyes. “Goddess. Of. Death. Seriously?! Also: Eternal flame. E. Ter. Nal.”

Sif lifted both eyebrows and asked Loki: “Are you sure we need her?”

 

************************

 

Nidavellir was dark.

Brunnhilde and Sif in the front seats leaned forward, Loki stood to lean over Brunnhilde’s backrest.

“Oh this isn’t right”, whispered the Valkyrie.

Behind Sif, Hela was still sleeping, hanging in the seatbelts like an overgrown child. By now, she seemed translucent, far too thin and frail still, but nearly alive again.  
Loki didn’t think any part of her weakness was faked. And she didn’t have any chance to go to Nidavellir before, at least as far as he knew.

No, this hadn’t been Hela. That left only one other popular choice.

“The dwarves forged the gauntlet”, he said.

Sif turned to him in shock. “Eitri would never betray us like this!”

“You don’t know Thanos. He can make anyone do anything.”

“Shit”, Brunnhilde said. “Does it even make sense to stop and check for survivors?”

“Yes.” Loki pointed to the central bay. “Even if the forge is cold, there might still be some weapons we can use.”

Sif sighed: “Damn, I liked the dwarves.”

“Me too”, Brunnhilde agreed.

While she set down the Commodore, Loki turned to Hela and carefully touched her shoulder. She blinked awake, instantly looking suspicious.

“There is a bed in the back room”, Loki said. “We cleaned everything thoroughly before Brunnhilde set off.”

“What would I do with a bed.”

Loki rolled his eyes and pointed outside, where the darkness and emptiness of Nidavellir’s main bay hall loomed. “We’ll go and scavenge any weapon we can. I promise to bring you a good one, if I can.”

Hela scoffed. “No way.” She struggled with the seatbelt, but slapped away Loki’s hands when he tried to help.

“Fine. But you have to keep up.”

“I’ll ride.”

*************************************************

Loki had thought having Fenrir looming behind them would be uncomfortable, but it rather felt like backup. Their steps echoed and stirred up dust and ashes.

From the shadows, a deep voice boomed: “Your majesty.”

Loki blinked, then finally made out the sitting, slumped over form of king Eitri.  
“Your majesty”, he responded.

Behind him, Hela asked:  
“What happened, dwarf?”

Loki shushed her without turning around. She protested: “Excuse me?!” But Loki was already walking closer to the dwarf.  
“Thanos.”

Eitri slowly struggled up and stepped into the dim light.  
“Thanos”, he agreed. Then he lifted up his hands, encased in cold, molten metal.

Loki lifted his own hands, letting the green magic of his late mother flicker over them, and glanced at the dwarf king’s eyes in question. Eitri let his arms sink again.  
“No use. It’s our metal. Your magic cannot undo it, once it is forged.”

“Well mine can!” Hela was already sliding off Fenrir’s back.

Eitri frowned at her. “Forgive me, I do not recognize you, Aesir.”

“I am Hela, Odin’s daughter, rightful queen of Asgard!”

Brunnhilde snarled: “No you are not! You’re the reason the Golden City is destroyed!”

“Really?” Eitri was standing up straighter, watching Hela’s magic force cracks into his cruel mittens. “Lord Thor didn’t mention that.”

Brunnhilde made a sharp step forward, while Loki simply froze. Sif and the Valkyrie asked at the same time: “Thor was here?!”

Hela’s low noise of disgust was drowned out in the two fighter’s questions and Eitri’s bewildered answers.

“When?!”  
“Was he alright?”

“Well, a few days ago, I believe. He had a Groot with him, and, uh, a talking dog.” He glanced at Fenrir. “A small one.”

Hela asked:  
“Why didn’t you go with him?”

Eitri shook his head.  
“My place is here. Also, he went via Bifrost. I don’t like that mode of travel. And I don’t like earth.”

“Me neither”, Hela mumbled.

Loki twitched. “How in the world did he open the Bifrost? Was… was Heimdall with him?”

It was impossible, but then, so was Thor escaping Thanos.  
He listened to Eitri’s explanation about Thor’s new weapon with half an ear, his mind racing.  
Maybe it wasn’t Thor at all, or Thor under orders from Thanos? No, Thor would rather die or suffer in eternity, which was exactly why Loki had been sure that he was currently doing exactly that: Suffering.

Norns, just the thought of it called up the memory of his torturer’s hoarse laughter, and the utter, utter horror of helplessly watching from the inside, while his body was performing humiliating, disgusting acts, completely without his doing.

Oh, this was way, way worse. If Thanos was remote controlling Thor, Loki would kill his brother himself, to spare him any seconds of this he could.

 

With a clear, ringing tone, the dwarven metal gave way, crumbling off of Eitri’s horribly injured hands.  
Loki took a deep breath and let Frigga’s healing flow through again.

Eitri smiled, tears running. He nodded at Hela: “Thank you, kind Lady.”

Brunnhilde breathed in wrongly and had a painful coughing fit. Sif crossed her arms and frowned.  
“She is the goddess of death, and she destroyed Asgard. She is anything but.”

“I didn’t destroy Asgard. That was Sutur.”

“Oh?” Eitri clearly wasn’t all that invested in the story, rather focussing on his hands slowly gaining back the ability to move, but Hela nonetheless put her hands in her hips, leaned back slightly, threw back her hair and dove right into the epic tale of Sutur versus Hela.

Loki helped Eitri do a few basic flexing tests with his fingers, then instructed him on further care: The scar tissue needed hydration and flexing, and the muscles needed strengthening.

Hela finished her tale with a snort, then said:  
“You will forge me a weapon, dwarf!”

Eitri stretched out his shoulders and smiled at her. “Sure I will. If you ever talk to me like that again, I will forge it with your blood. We are not Asgard’s servants. We are valued allies, and Odin was a friend.”

Hela made a face.  
“In my time, we slaughtered-”

Loki pushed her a little with invisible magic, making her stumble backwards.  
Then he asked Eitri carefully:  
“Your majesty… were there any other survivors?” 

Eitri looked down and shook his head.

Loki put a hand at his lower arm, the dwarf’s shoulder being out of reach.  
“My condolences. We will avenge them- ah, we will get revenge for them, and for Asgard’s ark as well.”

Eitri nodded.  
“I cannot give you any new weapons without the fire flowing, and I don’t recommend any of you hold the iris open.”

Loki blinked.  
“Hold… hold the iris open, why would anyone…”

“The mechanism is broken, and it shuts itself in any case of malfunction.”

Brunnhilde shrugged. “I bet I can repair that. Do you have repair drones?”

“None that still work.”

“Show me those that don’t.”

Loki followed the two in a daze.  
“Did… did Thor hold the iris open?”

Eitri smiled down at him.  
“He did. It was glorious. Between us, I was always curious as to what would happen if you forged an Aesir in that fire.”

“Forge… forge an Aesir…?”  
Loki put a hand against his chest, then glanced at the iris, barely visible through a smudged wall of windows at their side. 

“How long did he…”

“Several minutes! Exactly enough to melt down the metal for his axe.”

Loki stepped closer to the windows, while behind him Eitri explained the state of things to Brunnhilde, who was all business in her questions.

Outside, the cold heart of Nidavellir with its empty eye stared back at Loki.

The harsh ice that had filled his chest, only rarely pierced by his heart acting up, melted quickly into giddy warmth.

There was no way Thanos would have even thought of putting an asset of his into such a position. Even Nebula would have been torn apart, and even Loki, who’d made it an anxious hobby to research Aesir weaknesses from early childhood on, would have never believed Thor could survive this.  
The giddiness quickly morphed into a different kind of dread.

Good, Thor was alive, free and not under Thanos’ influence.

But he’d positioned himself into the eye of the heart of Nidavellir, and surely, he, too, had not known if he’d survive this.

Loki understood losing the Asgardians injured Thor in ways he’d never been hurt. Losing Heimdall would have been especially painful, and in Aesir time, the deaths of Odin and Frigga were practically yesterday and the day before.

But he’d never thought Thor would turn the suicidal kind of reckless.

“I’ll get them back”, he whispered to the echo of the shadow of Thor in the dwarven fire. “I’ll get you back your kingdom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "...always so perceptive about everyone but yourself."


	4. Dust to dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brunnhilde asked in a small voice: “Loki?”  
> Then she was gone.

“I noticed we’re not trying for Sakaar.” Brunnhilde was gnawing on some jerky while keeping an eye on the cockpit controls.

“The grandmaster is powerful, but I don’t think he could overpower Thanos.”

The Valkyrie raised an eyebrow at that and inclined her head at Loki. “He wouldn’t come alone. Man has an army.”

“Of slaves. He’d never risk letting them out of Sakaar and getting… ideas. Also, he lacks motivation.”

Brunnhilde snickered. “Depends. How much did you put out?”

Loki sighed. “Point is, he’s ancient and bored. That is not the type of person who makes a reliable ally.”

A dark frown. “But Hela does?”

“Hela has a clear motivation.”

“Do I.” Hela came in, leaned against the back of Loki’s co-pilot chair, crossed her arms and said: “So the Lady Sif just crumbled to dust, and although I find that hilarious, it wasn’t me.“

Loki and Brunnhilde shared a shocked gaze. Then the Valkyrie twitched and looked at her hand. The jerky fell out of her grasp as she slowly started to disintegrate.

“Ah yes, exactly like that.” Hela nodded.

Brunnhilde asked in a small voice: “Loki?”

Then she was gone.

Loki stared at the brownish grey residue swirling in the air, slowly being sucked up by the ship’s filters.

He croaked: “He’s done it.”

Hela wiped the ashes off the pilot’s chair and sat down with a grandiose gesture and a deep, satisfied sigh.

“Does that throw off your deal? I should hope you foresaw that possibility.”

Loki stared at his own, shaking hands.  
“He killed them. Thanos killed half the universe.”

“Ah, no, this was not death, what we just witnessed.”

Loki lifted his gaze again, scarcely daring to hope.

“Oh my, you truly are easy to read, aren’t you? Well.” She spread the fingers of both hands. “I am the goddess of death - I know, I know, I said so before, but you still don’t seem to understand.” She smiled. “I know death when I see it, and this wasn’t it. There was a distinct lack of, ah, how do I explain this… there is a cool draft when a life ends. As if I can smell the veil opening for a miniscule moment.”

Loki blinked and nodded slowly.

“These two didn’t die.” Her smile looked like it was trying hard to look warm.

Loki took a deep breath.  
“He must have assembled the full gauntlet, collected all six of the infinity stones. That means he can bend reality to his will. He must have… undone them.”

He was now very glad he’d had the small talk with Eitri before they had left Nidavellir.  
Not only had Brunnhilde been able to assist in calling all dwarfs who’d been in their year of travel home to the forge, Loki had also left the king of the dwarves with instructions that now gained a lot of importance.

Hela crossed her legs.  
“Interesting theory. Undoing people would take a lot of changes in the timeline, which takes a lot of energy - and I mean, a LOT - , but this residue here rather points to the soul stone. I think he merely trapped them in its pocket dimension.”

“You studied the soul stone?”

“Of course I did. I even stood at its threshold.” Hela snarled: “The challenge to get it was ludicrous though.”  
She narrowed her eyes and added: “If that stone is cognizant like your Tesseract, it’s a little bitch.”

Loki blinked, then closed his eyes and leaned back.

Norns, they had lost Sif and the Valkyrie already.  
There was no telling who was left standing on earth. If Jane was lost, Loki was down another major player. And he knew he’d have to contact the Avengers, but oh, he really didn’t look forward to that little chat, and now he didn’t even know if there were any left.

After a moment of silence, Hela asked:  
“I was wondering: Why would Thanos want to kill half the universe? How does that even make sense in his mind?”

“He kept on about ‘restoring balance’”, Loki muttered. “He thinks there are simply too many people in the universe, and if there were less, land and food and comforts would be less scarce.”

“Less scarce? But…” Hela prodded Loki’s knee with a foot. “Don’t fall asleep.”

Loki opened his eyes.

“I thought you said he was ancient and powerful. He cannot have overlooked how abundant resources are in the multiverse. That is why one needs to conquer people! Without the workforce to actually harvest the resources, what good do they do?”

“Fine then, he’s insane.”

“I doubt that. Very few people are, and those are usually Elders. Oh, is he one?”

“No.”

There was a beat of silence. Loki looked out at the stars and wondered if he’d prefer Thor to be trapped like Sif and Brunnhilde, which would mean he wouldn’t have to face him on earth. Or if he would pay the price of facing that anger just to see him once more, one final time.

“You really do look like me”, Hela mused. “Like a male version of me. I always knew Odin would have prefered a son - small wonder Frigga nudged his seed in that direction - but you really are everything he wanted me to be. Smart, devious and deadly still, but also male, easy to read and a bleeding heart.”

Loki glanced at her, wary of where she was going with this.

“I wonder”, she smiled, showing off her sharp teeth. “How was that working out for you, little shapeshifter? Did black hair and green eyes help him accept you as his?”

Loki blinked.

“Oh please. As if I don’t know a frost giant when one pulls me in from the freezing cold of open space. But do tell me: Did father bed a blue ugly or did he simply steal himself a little baby, hmm? Was Frigga’s little golden boy not quite to his liking?”

“Hmm. We are alike, aren’t we. Two children of fallen kings, heirs of nothing, turning to mockery if thrown off our game.”

“Not heirs of nothing.” Hela dropped the needling tone and said: “I am the rightful queen of Asgard, and if there is no city left, if there are no citizens left, then I am still queen of Asgard, heiress of its mighty history.”  
She leaned back and flicked her fingers at Loki.  
“Laufey’s child, hmm? Interesting. See, I inherited a history of conquest and power. You are then the heir of, how should I phrase this, indecision, stupidity and submission.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “If you want to antagonize me, talking trash about Laufey is not a very promising road.”

“I’m noticing that. Pity. How about telling you more about Frigga and her misguided calculations, hmm? She was the one pointing Odin at earth, and ugh, earth, that was the end of our greatness. She was the one telling Odin fairy tales of the kind of benevolent ruler he could be, of all the love he would be able to inspire, fucking bullshit.”

Loki nodded slowly, even though his heart was hurting at how much he missed her.  
“She was wrong there. When I ruled Asgard, every single realm was planning a revolution, they were all on the brink of rising up and shaking off the shackles of Asgardian rule.”

“I’m not surprised! All she did was make us weak! With me at his side, Odin would have never let this come to pass! But no, I grew too greedy, the witch whispered in his ear. Greedy! As if she wasn’t the one who wanted the whole world for herself, in the image she prefered!”

“Hmm, no, that doesn’t make me angry either, just tired. But then, do you think it’s wise to try and antagonize me?”

“Wise? Maybe not, but your deal with Death is clearly smashed to pieces, and I am powerful, ancient, and bored.”

“It’s not.”

Hela lifted an eyebrow.

“It’s only turned more complicated. Thanos just stole half the universe worth of souls from Death. I will have to get them back, so that she can reap them when their time has come.”

“And in exchange, you get the Asgardian ark resurrected.”

“Yes.”

“And that is all. Just the Asgardians, for half a universe of souls. Norns, you are bad at deals! I thought Frigga taught you!”

“She did.” Loki smiled slightly. “She’d be appalled.”

Hela squinted at him, then shrugged. “Fine, don’t tell me the real deal.”

Loki looked outside again and tried to shake off the memory of Thor’s eye, staring at him through helpless tears and defeated fury.  
He hadn’t had a lot of time. While the Hulk had kept Thanos busy for a moment, Loki had actually had the chance to flee. He’d even run the first few steps. But then, where would he have run to? Asgard was gone, Thor in chains, and even the thought of surviving now to do battle again later, well, that had been a ludicrous idea.  
He’d known he couldn’t defeat Thanos, none of them could. Even with all of the powerful individuals he knew about all banding together, they had no chance.

There was only one thing he had in his arsenal that trumped Thanos’ situation: Loki was a god.  
So in dying, he would meet Death, and he’d be able to have a word with her. He’d caught hints of Thanos’ preoccupation with Death, he knew something else was underfoot than a massive culling that anyone with half a brain knew would do more harm than good, even for those that were left behind, even discounting their pain.

So, a word with Death was the only card he had left to play. And he’d made sure he died in Thor’s loyalty, with a weapon in hand, therefore: With a right to Valhalla.

But he knew Thor would know that this was not an illusion. He’d learned how to distinguish between mirage and reality very, very well. And although he tried to hint at his plan, Thor’s face clearly said he simply saw his brother die, again, for real this time.

The memory of that face was like a dagger between Loki’s ribs. 

Hela sighed: “I don’t like earth.”

“I do.” Loki smiled. “Earth doesn’t like me, though.”

Hela laughed. “Well, that is at least something!”

“So, who was your mother then?” Loki asked, faking the easy tone of small talk, but well aware that Hela had been skillfully avoiding that topic.

Hela’s eyes flashed at him, angry, but also pleased. The flight to earth would take a long time still, but at least neither of them would be bored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will bring us to earth, and a shift in POV!
> 
> Oh, and: Come flail with me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/)!


	5. Ashes to ashes

“I can’t lose you too, Clint!”  
Laura was barely getting the words out through the tears that had only just lost their hysterical edge.

Clint stopped his methodical packing and stared at the open black duffle bag on the friendly duvet cover.

Laura put a hand on his arm and whispered:  
“I’m pregnant.”

Clint felt a surge of fury, but it died down quickly. To think he’d been so worried he’d ever be violent against his family. All he ever had were small sparks like this one, and other than that, nothing but gratefulness and love.

He sighed.  
He glanced at his wife, then sat down on the bed and pulled her down to sit next to him.

“Don’t do that. Don’t try to manipulate me like that.”

“What?! I’m not lying!”

“I know you’re not. And I’ve known for a while. At least since you came back from your last ‘coffee with Clara in the city’. I’m good at noticing stuff.”

Laura blinked, her lower lip wobbling. “I was waiting for a good moment to tell you.”

“You were scared to tell me. Laura… I will go to Wakanda. Steve wouldn’t have called if they didn’t think I could help. There is nothing you can do to hold me back. But you have to believe me: I’ll come back here, afterwards, if I can.”

“Of course you will.”

“No, god, please stop…”  
Clint let a cold hand glide over his face. The sun was barely rising, and Cooper’s and Lila’s beds housed nothing but cold ashes.  
Steve’s call had woken them, and only then had they checked, and… they were gone.

Laura was clinging to his hand.

Clint tried to gentle his voice, like he was talking to a scared, abused dog, or a civilian kid caught in some crossfire.  
“Laura, I know.”

“How it feels? How it feels to be the one left behind?”

“That you’re a SHIELD agent. That all of this-” he gestured around “- has been set up to keep me under control, after Loki.”

Laura’s face contorted, as if she tried hard to be furious under her horrible grief.

“I know Nick used my amnesia to convince me I had simply forgotten about you three, and I know Lila and the Coop have a different bio-father. I don’t know why you needed out, but I know that you weren’t quite convinced this would work out. But Laura, we’re happy, right? And I do love you. And god, I love the kids. And they are mine. You are mine.”

“They were yours”, Laura sobbed into his shoulder. “Oh god, Clint, they’re gone!”

“I’m not so sure about that. I… it might not actually be a good idea to hold off on the mourning, but darling, no body, no murder. And with all the shit I’ve seen fly already, I really want to be sure before I give up on them.”

Laura hiccuped but straightened up.  
“Oh god… what if we gather up some hope now, but then it turns out…”

Clint nodded. “So I’m trying not to hope. Or at least not to expect. But I need to find out what’s what.” He put his brow against hers. “And then I’ll come back.”

He’d always liked Laura’s sharp intelligence. Her brown eyes bore into his for a moment, losing the utter devastation, turning into the look which had been his first hint at yes, this was an agent of SHIELD.

“Okay. Okay.” She stood up and pulled out the part of his gear that was stored between the bed and the wall, in a secret compartment in the headboard.  
“But if the gig is up, we need to talk about the Widow.”

“Urgh, do we?”

Laura threw him a shaky smile. “I love you too. But I think I’m also at least a little bit in love with you.”  
She turned to her task of helping him pack again. “And I think you’re not in love with me.”

“Uh.”

“So, are you in love with her?”  
She put her hands on her hips and frowned down at the gear she’d spread out at the head end of the duvet cover. “I’m not asking to make a scene or anything.”

She glanced at him. He blinked.

She snickered, a wet sound reminiscent of her hysterical weeping moments ago. “I’m asking to know if this time, I should expect both of you.”

Clint blinked again. Then he smiled slightly, his face hurting after the stoniness that had kept it frozen since Steve’s call.  
“God I love you.”

**********************************

Laura forced a healthy and very, very yummy breakfast on him, pancakes and all. While she prepared that, Clint cleaned up the kids' beds. He collected the ashes in sterile containers and stored them in the shed. Just in case.

Laura clearly noticed and gave him an extra long hug, but they didn’t talk about it.

When the quinjet arrived, Clint wasn’t surprised to see Nat in the pilot’s seat. He was however surprised that she was otherwise alone. For a second. Then he clued in and braced himself for the impending briefing.

He sat down in the copilot’s seat and took a deep breath. Nat immediately lifted the jet up again.

Clint said: “Both Laura and Cooper. We watched a few minutes of news, then turned it off.”

Natasha nodded.  
“Wanda, Sam, Barnes. We don’t know where Tony and Spiderman ended up, so they’re considered MIA for now. Strange was probably with them, says Bruce. Nick and Maria, both unconfirmed, but they would have called in with someone. SHIELD lost most of their agents, and Wakanda took heavy losses in their army as well. And king T’Challa. Otherwise, roughly half the population, like everywhere. Vision lost the mind stone. He certainly looks like a corpse, but Princess Shuri thinks she might be able to get him back.”

Clint mumbled: “Damn, Wakanda, man…”

Nat nodded.  
“Rhodey is working with Wakanda command, names: Okoye, head of armed forces and intel, and M’Baku, male leader of the independent tribe Jabari - powerful fighters. They’re trying to bring stability to the region - Wakanda and surrounding countries first. Not easy: harsh resentment for pre-opening indifference to their problems. A woman named Nakia is leading the diplomatic side of things.”

Clint leaned back into his seat, and he could feel mission-calmness suffusing him while he filed away the info.

“Steve flew further north, he’s collecting Scott Lang and associate.”

Clint glanced at her, and she inclined her head.

“Daughter’s dusted too. Thor showed up at the end, helped a lot - got a level-up at some point, truly impressive - nearly killed Thanos. Thanos: Main enemy. Thor brought two aliens, one plant-based, dusted. The other one is basically a genetically mutated raccoon. Intelligent, anarchic, name's Rocket. Works with Shuri on tech.”

Clint blinked and nodded. Why not.  
So that was their resources and base of operation.

“So, Thanos. Apparently the one who sent the Chitauri. Was after all the infinity stones: Mind stone, Vision. Time stone, Strange. I therefore consider Strange dead. Other stones from off-world. He put them in a golden gauntlet. Let him manipulate time - we actually saw him turn it back on Vision: Wanda had destroyed him, and Thanos pulled time back and got the mind stone. Then he-”

“Wanda destroyed Vision?” Clint asked in a low voice.

Natasha’s tight nod told him the rest. Her final moments would have been hell, then. Great.

“Thanos then snapped his fingers, disappeared. And half the population of the world got dusted. Thor says, it would have been half the population of the known universe, maybe even multiverse.”

“Multiverse. Hmmkay, let’s not go into that, I guess.”

Nat nodded again.  
“World leaders are pulling together, thankfully. We have not told them not to expect another attack.”

Clint nodded.

“SHIELD is trying to help, but barely functional. Friday has decided to spread herself out to help where she can, too. Pepper says Tony’s loss apparently triggered something in her. She’s not supposed to be as sentient as Jarvis was.”  
Natasha blinked, then said: “That’s it.”

Situation, immediate causes and impact, alright. But no mission.  
Clint said: “Steve has a plan?”

“No, Steve is in a stupor. Haven’t seen him this bad, not even directly after being frozen.”

Clint mumbled:  
“Yeah, haven’t seen you this bad in a while, too.”

Nat simply nodded. “Yes. I know. I’m glad you’re here.”

He leaned over and squeezed her shoulder.

She said: “Thor has a plan for revenge. Asgard is gone, and Thanos killed all refugees. He’s the last of his kind, apart from a few people he went to collect. Oh. Important bit: He has a new weapon, can call up the Bifrost with it.”

“Oh yeah, useful!” Damn, Nat was totally out of it, wasn’t she.

Nat glanced at him. “You seem good.”

“Suspended reaction.”

She nodded again.

Clint took another deep breath. “Revenge isn’t much though. So we think the ‘dusting’ was permanent? Because I did hear you say something about un-destroying Vision via time shenanigans.”

“Yes. Find Thanos, kill him, get the gauntlet from him, find someone who can wield it, undo it.”

Clint looked at her for a long moment.  
“You don’t think it’ll work.”

Far below them, the ocean was speeding past, this far out huge waves looking like mountain ranges slowly rolling along.

Natasha’s voice was lower, smaller as she finally said: “I think it could cost us all we have left. I think Thor is suicidal. So is Steve. I am not.”

“Shit.” Clint crossed his arms and tried to feel his way into this situation. “So we’ll have to play the Coulson for them.”

Her quick glance betrayed her surprise.

Clint smiled slightly. “Two suicidal jacked up broken down high players who need to be pointed at the right target, away from the ledge. He did it, and we are his creatures, first and foremost. I mean, I couldn’t do it on my own, but the two of us? We might just pull that off.”

There was a very specific smile of Nat’s that Clint was always glad to see, but was never happy to have to pull up. Brittle at the edges, tired and sad, but daring to hope in such a childlike way, it hurt to see.

“Yeah”, she said. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come flail with me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Also: comments give me LIFE!


	6. Fear no evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Half the planet was just lost to alien activity, and now a spaceship lands in their front yard. Humans are not stupid, Hela.”

When Loki and Hela brought the Commodore down on the packed snow, they could immediately see that Jane Foster was still at the astrophysics research station where Loki had last located her.  
He’d kept tabs on people of interest while ruling Asgard, so of course he’d looked her up now and again. Well. Heimdall had done it for him.

In the bright light with which the station’s elevated building pierced the deep darkness, a lone figure stood on the stairs, packed into thick clothes against the furious cold.

She had her arms crossed and most of her face was savely covered, but she still managed to convey a level of flustered annoyance that was kind of impressive.

Hela said after a moment, while they were still looking out from the cockpit:  
“There are quite a few weapons leveled at us. I mean, I would have liked to see how you handle the situation without knowing this, but I’m more curious about that plan of yours”,  
she smiled.

“Half the planet was just lost to alien activity, and now a spaceship lands in their front yard. Humans are not stupid, Hela.”

“I beg to differ.”

They exited the ship, both unbothered by the cold, both armed.  
Hela had her new weapon across her back. Even with the metal part folded in, it was long and unwieldy; she apparently prefered to not have to summon it up from wherever else she kept her usual arsenal.

Loki’s two new knives were well hidden out of sight.

When they reached the foot of the stairs, Jane pulled down her scarf a little and called out:  
“Did Thor send you?”

Loki called up: “No, he doesn’t know we’re here.”

She stared at him for a second, then turned on her heel and walked inside.

Behind two separate doors forming a lock for the cold, the building was comfortably warm and lighted. Jane took off her snowsuit and said:  
“Welcome to Amundsen-Scott. I need a drink.”

She walked away from them, so Loki followed. When Hela didn’t, he glanced back. The cold lock had opened again for four men with rifles, and Hela apparently enjoyed terrorizing them with her appearance and smile alone.

“Hela.”

With a mighty roll of her eyes, she followed.

Jane chose the common eating room to get out the alcohol and a big glass. She didn’t offer either Asgardian any.  
“We saw the news”, she said, as if that explained anything.

Loki sat down across from her.  
“We might be able to undo this.” He lifted a hand when she froze: “Might. Thanos used six different powers combined to do this. One of them is the aether.”

Hela sat down next to them, watching the other humans slowly gathering around them.

Jane stared at Loki for a moment, then downed the glass.

“Undo this. All of it or just the dusting?”

Loki inclined his head in silent question.

“Half the pilots in flight turn to dust: thousands of planes crash. Half the people manning train cockpits, cars, helicopters, heavy machinery, fragile experiments, power stations. Then, half the people missing from ambulances, fire departments, hospitals.”  
Jane downed another glass.  
“It took a while until we could even think of checking on unsupervised children. Babies. People on respirators, or otherwise unable to walk. God. The cattle alone.”

Jane stared at him, her honey eyes uncomfortably reminiscent of the fury of Death.

Loki nodded slowly. “I’m not sure what exactly we can do. However, one of the powers Thanos used was Time.”

Jane leaned back. “Captain Rogers said Thanos had disappeared, and they had no idea how to even get to him.”

“He contacted you?”

“No, he was on the news.”

“Ah.” Loki cleared his throat. So he did have at least the few bargaining chips he could think off, to get the Avengers on the right track.

Jane was still staring at him.  
“What can I do?”

“This is only conjecture, but I think it worth trying. You had a connection to the aether. You even saw what Malekith had planned to do with it, didn’t you.”

“So I had a connection to Malekith through the aether. Doesn’t mean it, as the medium of that connection, will heel to me.”

Loki smiled. Hela looked surprised. She really underestimated humans.  
Loki said: “But Malekith is dead. And the aether needs a person.”

“A conductor.”  
Jane leaned back and stared at the ceiling. Then she put both arms on the table. She looked at Loki, dark gaze boring into his, and he could see that she had realized that this would kill her.  
That Thor could never know this.

Her lips thinned, and she nodded.

 

********************

 

When their sensors picked up New York, way before they could see it through the morning haze over the ocean, a gentle, friendly woman’s voice hailed them:  
“This is Avengers Tower, hailing the bogey approaching west by north-west. Please identify yourself and state your purpose.”

Hela lifted an eyebrow at Loki, and he activated the comm.  
“This is Loki of Asgard, with two passengers, requesting permission to land.”

“Loki of Asgard, you are not listed as a friendly.” It was uncanny, the way Stark had managed to program this artificial little helper. This was a very polite inquiry for a potentially very impolite question.

“I might not always have aligned in purpose with the Avengers, but it was Thanos who forced us to different sides, Thanos who sent his army of Chitauri, and Thanos who I want to find and destroy. In this, I should think we have a common goal.”

“You have permission to land on the main platform of Avengers tower. Do not stray from that target, do not take any detours. When exiting your vehicle, I request you do not enter the building until invited to do so.”

“Understood and agreed.”

Loki closed the connection.

Hela crossed her arms. “What was that?”

“Friday”, Jane said from behind her. “She’s everywhere these days.”

Loki turned to her with an astonished glance. That didn’t sound good.

“Tony Stark is missing. I mean, he’s probably dead. And his AI has gone rogue.”  
Jane looked like she regretted not bringing her bottle.

Hela leaned forward. “Oh dear. Is that it? That is one ugly building.”

Loki grinned, but while on the outside he joined Hela in trash-talking the tower, his mind was adjusting to the new info. No Stark. Rogue AI. Maybe. Maybe.

 

On the platform, a tall, red-haired woman in a black suit came to greet them. Her glance for Loki was ice-cold. Jane however, she greeted with a handshake.  
“Dr. Foster. I do hope Loki has asked you to join him, and not just taken you.”

“Miss Potts! It’s so good to see you again!”

Potts welcomed Hela with a handshake as well, introducing herself, and the Aesir was astonishingly polite in her response.

Loki asked:  
“Where are the Avengers? They can’t all have died?”

Another icy gaze. “They’re at their new headquarters. Please, Hela, Jane, do come in.”

Loki trailed after them, slightly taken aback. “And that is not here?”

“No. Coffee?”  
Not that she offered Loki any. Hela and Jane soon sipped theirs.

“So where are they?”

Hela shushed Loki and asked, with a gracefully inclined head: “Forgive the crassness of the question, Miss Potts, but what are you? I have never seen one like you before.”

Loki blinked, then checked the woman out again. Frigga’s magic was the immediate spark that wanted to tell him something: Oh. She was pregnant. And recently so, still in the dangerous first few weeks of it.  
But that couldn’t be what Hela was talking about, surely.

Potts pursed her lips.  
“I am new, shall we say.”

Loki concentrated harder. There: raw power, untapped, below the surface. Also, his own nature pinging towards a slow echo of Hela “...never seen one like you…” That had been a lie. Loki glanced at her. Hela smiled and lifted both hands in appeasement.  
“Apologies. It is just: We are collecting all the assets we can for the battle against Thanos, to possibly undo the, ah, “dusting”, you call it. And you seem like a very good ally to have in this.”

Frigga’s magic insisted: Human. Pregnant, healthy, very fit, but human. Hmm. Very, very healthy. Not a scratch, not a single pimple or small inflammation inside of her, anywhere. That was uncommon, but not unheard of. But the power below the surface had no mark of magic about it.

Potts sipped her own coffee and inclined her head towards Loki. “His plan, I assume?”

Loki said: “Thanos used six powers to do this. I have a connection to one of them, Jane has another. If we can find others, we might be able to pull them apart, and use them against him.”

Potts and Jane exchanged a series of looks and small gestures in the female language of How Much Is He Bullshitting Right Now.  
Loki had only learned of this language when he himself had walked around female for a while. He’d been especially astonished of the many variants of Are You In Trouble.

“They’re in Wakanda”, Potts finally said. “I’m coming with you.” 

She obviously expected them to protest, but none of them did. Hela nodded in satisfaction, Jane smiled with something like confused relief, and Loki never looked gift horses in the mouth.  
Whatever power this woman was hoarding, it was immense, enough so to impress Hela. And if she was carrying Stark’s child, oh, then she’d be deadly and careful. A good fighter to have in their ranks indeed.

The three women finished their coffee and a small breakfast, and then Potts took them to collect a few things to take with her.

Loki wandered over to the glass walls and looked down on the city. He could still pick out a few Chitauri wounds, but there were newer ones, too. Crashed vehicles, he supposed.

The last time he’d been here, the Hulk had smashed the last remnants of Thanos’ shadow out of Loki’s mind, and although he’d been in incredible pain, he’d also been so pathetically happy.  
Not that it held for long. Yes, he’d been free again, yes, Thor still cared for him, yes he was going home. But Thor was still blind, impulsive and just… so stupid. Taking everything at face value, never even trying to look at what lay behind things.  
Loki found himself slightly shaking with remembered helpless rage.  
It had been an affront to his natural intelligence, the way that man had squandered his mind on empty heroism and swank.

Until Ragnarok that was.  
Until he’d been to the realms and seen Thanos’ work pulling at the threads of the fraying web of the Asgardian empire. “Losing” Loki, and then working with the realms had matured Thor in ways Loki had had already given up on at that point.

Oh, the way he’d looked through Loki’s disguise as Odin. How on Sakaar, he’d been so angry at him, but also relying on him, as if he actually understood. Oh, the way he’d anticipated and thwarted Loki’s attempt at betraying him in the shipyard.

Loki smiled down at New York, his heart still swollen with pride.  
It had been Thor’s idea to induce Ragnarok. Thor had seen the few options he had left, and then dared to use them in the bravest and smartest way possible. That was the king Loki had always wanted to follow.  
That was his king.

When he turned around, the three women still weren’t back.  
The room had changed a lot since he’d last been here, but there was a new bar where Stark had poured himself a drink.  
Before Loki had thrown him out of a window. Before Thor had gagged him and thrown him into Asgard’s dungeons, still blind and stupid back then.

Loki had his arms crossed and head inclined. Now he looked down at his feet.  
They would see each other again, and every moment they were together, Loki would keep up a lie. A lie of omission, granted, but a huge one nonetheless.

And then, afterwards, Thor would hate him.

Nausea bubbled up in his gut at the thoughts of what he could have done to prevent this. At Asgard? Nothing. In Thanos’ hands? Not a thing, neither before nor after Ragnarok. But here, in this room, he could have… he could have killed his pride, and saved his brother’s love.  
Thanos saved me, he could have said. He broke me, brother. Help me.

With a deep breath Loki shook himself out of useless what-ifs. Who knew how Thor would have reacted. The king he was now was so different from the petulant child he had been way back then.  
Well. A few years ago only, but what a difference.

A small voice piping up in the back of his mind was quickly smothered: This was a different situation. He was his own agent in this, and this was his own mess.

 

By now, Friday had surely found a way to install herself onto the Commodore. Time to have a private little talk with her.


	7. As we are gathered here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ah man”, Clint said. “The hair!”

Bruce hugged him when he arrived with Natasha.  
“Clint,” he said. “Clint.”

Clint, as always unhappy with this kind of physical contact, patted his back a little strangely.  
“Hey man! Welcome back. Where were you?”

“At the ass end of the universe. Literally!” Bruce laughed. It had a slightly hysterical edge.

Nat asked: “Steve back yet?”

“No, but he called. They’re packing up some tech to take with them. Should be back soon enough.”  
Bruce was wringing his hands, literally. Like a flustered elderly lady.

Nat lead them inside, where they were met by a phalanx of formidable looking bald women, with whom they had to register every weapon he’d brought with him.  
A glance shared with Nat confirmed that yeah, he shouldn’t cheat.

While they were scanning each and every item thoroughly - and, he suspected, tagged them - Bruce gave Nat a rambling update that basically amounted to “nothing new”.  
He was interrupted by a flash of bright, flickering light from outside, strangely tinted from the dark glass of the high windows.

The Dora Milaje didn’t even twitch, but the three Avengers turned towards the entrance, all wearing variants of smiles and slightly more relaxed shoulders. Thor was back.  
He walked in slowly, alone, twirling an impressive axe. He looked weary, tired, and shorn like a sheep.

“Ah man”, Clint said. “The hair!”

Thor looked up in surprise, then broke out into a wide smile. “Hawkeye! It is good to see you, my dear friend!”  
He got another hug, only that this time, his nose nearly hit a pectoral. The guy was wearing heels, surely!

From the area behind the Wakandan security, a small blur came running, something furry on all fours, weaved through the women, then jumped Thor.  
Clint had one of his knives ready to throw, but Nat already had her hand on his arm.

One of the security officers held out a hand with a stern gaze, and he gave the knife back.

The raccoon, now perching on Thor’s shoulder, said:  
“Thor my man! Where’s your crew?” He was leaning forward to catch Thor’s gaze, his tiny, furred hands grabbing onto Thor’s chest armor. “Ah shit, don’t tell me they were both dusted?” Tail and ears drooped, and the pointed little face lowered as his shoulders hung in sympathy.

Clint manfully swallowed the cooing that wanted to escape his throat.  
The raccoon was wearing a little suit, with belts and cargo pockets.  
And the ears.  
They were fuzzy.

Thor shook his head.  
“I don’t know. They were seen before the dusting, but not after. Brunnhilde found Sif, at least, so they should have been on their way to the Statesman’s last position. I left a beacon there for them, to guide them to earth… I’ll have to wait and see.”

There was something lacking from his voice. As if it had been replaced by a low quality recording.

Nat gestured between them and said: “Rocket, Clint. Rocket is a brilliant mechanic and a kleptomaniac. Clint is a master archer and marksman, and if you try and steal his hearing aids, I will skin you alive before even he can shoot you.”

Rocket smirked at Nat. Clint crossed his arms: “Oh no no, let him try.”  
The smirk moved to him, and Clint grinned back.

Then their mirth died off, and Clint said: “Thor… uh…”

Thor nodded. “Thank you”, he said, as if Clint had actually managed to convey how sorry he was for Thor’s loss. For a second, the thought of the kids flashed up, but it was quickly squashed. Later. Later he would deal with this. At least he wasn’t the last survivor of his world.

Bruce sighed.  
For a moment, they simply stood there, hushed by the enormous helplessness the likes of which none of them had ever encountered.

Then Rocket said:  
“Oh! Yeah! The princess made some progress with the robot! So there’s that!”

 

*******************

There was cold silence in princess Shuri’s labs, and an air of concentrated brilliance much like Clint had always felt in Tony’s workshops.

Nat had a call with Rhodey, on the other end of the room, out of casual earshot, but she’d angled herself so that Clint could read her lips.  
Apparently the combined knowledge and power of all the nations of earth had absolutely no idea how to get at Thanos, if he was even still alive. They were only doing damage control, and interestingly, helping each other out with soldiers turned development workers.

It helped restore some of Clint’s regularly lost faith in humanity. He’d seen it time and time again, unlike anything politicians or hollywood wanted people to believe: in times of crisis humans flocked together to help each other out.

Meanwhile, Shuri had an agitated discussion with Rocket and Bruce, debating if it was okay to try and wake Vision now.

Nat had been right, Vision looked like a corpse. He’d lost all color, and although they had filled the hole in his head with something, it still looked like a covered-up headshot to Clint.

Thor was standing at the tall windows, looking out over the breathtaking view.

Clint hopped from his perch and strolled over. What would Coulson do.  
“Hey”, he said.

Thor inclined his head at him.

Clint glanced at the axe leaning nearby. “Nice new bling!”

Thor glanced at it as well. “She is called Stormbreaker. Eitri, king of dwarves, forged her for me in Nidavellir.”

Clint lifted both eyebrows.  
“Sounds impressive!”

“He will never forge anything else ever again.” Thor turned towards the view again. “The fire of Nidavellir has gone cold again after my visit. Thanos took all of his people, the fire of his forge, and his hands.”

Clint swallowed and turned to look outside as well.  
Cooper. Lila.  
Maybe they were actually gone.

A large, warm hand landed gently on his shoulder. “I heard about your offspring. I weep with you, my friend.”

Clint closed his eyes and nodded. It might have been easier actually, if Thor had been weeping, and not surrounded by this odd stillness.  
Delayed reaction, he supposed.

“Nat said, Steve is simply assembling as many fighters as he can. Does he really… not have a plan?”

Thor smiled slightly. “What good would a plan do us now? No, I suppose we all just feel the need to huddle for warmth in this cold new world. I should be relieved if the Lady Sif and the Valkyrie make it here, I suppose.”

Clint side-eyed him for that.

Thor’s smile turned a little wider, but also, colder, bordering on cruel. “Did you hear: Stormbreaker had the power to kill Thanos. I buried her deep into his chest. I could have relieved him of the arm that carried the thrice-cursed gauntlet. I could have cleaved his head down to his breastbone. I did not.”

He turned towards where Shuri was now preparing to try and raise Vision from the dead.  
“I did not. I aimed for his heart.” He blinked slowly.

Clint stared at him in horror. What would Coulson do, quickly. If you thought the end of the world, no, of two worlds was somehow your fault alone. What would he tell you?  
“This isn’t your fault!”

Thor snorted, put a hand on his shoulder again and smiled gently. “That is kind of you to say.”

Vision, laid out on the table like an execution’s victim in a morgue, started twitching, and giving off some unholy sounds.

Thor nodded in something like encouragement at Clint, then said:  
“I believe Steve Rogers has arrived. I will go greet him.”

Clint nodded. It would be a good idea to go with him, he thought. Get a feel for the state Steve was in. But his feet wouldn’t move.

 

*******************

 

Against all odds, Steve actually had some hope in his luggage, even if just for revenge.  
That evening, they all met over dinner snacks, and Hope van Dyne explained what she knew of the Quantum Realm, concluding in:

“We need an anchor to find him, but if we have that, we can. Scott and I can then trap him in the Quantum Realm in a way that time does not move for him, which makes it impossible for him to react at all.”

Rocket said:  
“Yeah, sure. No. I wanna tear him limb from limb!”

He was sitting on three cushions to reach enough height to sit with them. He had his arms crossed, and Clint was just fascinated by the fact that his elbows where small and fuzzy. His elbows.

Steve said:  
“We need to get Vision going, in any shape or form. The mind stone was a part of him. Maybe he could lead us to where Thanos is hiding.”

Thor added: “The gauntlet was forged from dwarven metals. They are not singular, but rare enough that they might provide another lead, even if the gauntlet is destroyed.”

Nat asked: “What do you mean, destroyed?”

“I saw the form it was born from. It could not have withstood the amount of energy pouring through it without losing at least some of its structural integrity.” Thor put both hands on the table. “The gauntlet was created to be used in this way only once.”

Rocket said: “But even broken, it’s still the same metal. Same as your axe?”

“Similar enough.”

Rocket smiled. “That’s something!”

Steve nodded. “It will do the universe good to know we at least captured him.” Then he looked around the table. “But even if the gauntlet should be destroyed, the stones should still exist. And he could still possibly wield them one by one. This will not be easy.”

Princess Shuri asked: “I’m sorry, is really nobody else asking this? If the stones still exist, and we can find them, why shouldn’t we use them?! One of them is the time stone. Time!”

Steve lifted a hand.  
“This is a possibility inside of a possibility inside of a small chance. Let’s focus on finding Thanos.”

Shuri scoffed. “I’m focusing on getting my brother back, thank you.”

What would Coulson say?  
“Same direction, only one step at a time, your majesty.” Clint tried for a calm and reasonable tone, when all he wanted to do was pound the table for them to get going already.

Shuri frowned at him, then nodded reluctantly.

Nat lifted an eyebrow at him, and Clint let the corner of his mouth twitch in response. Yes, well done he.

Shuri, Rocket and Bruce discussed how to best analyze Thor’s axe, and Hope filled in the Quantum Realm side of the requirements.

After a moment, Thor said:  
“Let me know if you need me. I shall walk the city, see if I can help any of the citizens with anything.”

Steve looked positively torn at that.  
Nat twitched, then said: “Go, I’ll keep an eye on the science squad.” Clint twitched his lips at her. Well done, Coulson 2. Rocket was even a little bit flustered, he was so pleased to be counted as a scientist.  
Nat rolled her eyes, but Steve was visibly relieved.  
“I will join you, then!”

Clint resigned himself to shadowing them for the evening.  
That cruel corner of Thor’s new smile needed watching. And Clint felt like Steve wasn’t even back yet.  
Help keeping them both busy was the best thing he could do right now. And watch them.  
Like Coulson would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come party in the trashcan on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/)!


	8. One with each other

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He truly, truly didn’t want to do this.  
> There was nothing he wanted more.

Potts had a direct number to call to warn Wakanda they were coming, so they landed without any issues.  
It was early morning, but Rogers and Romanov stood ready to greet them, with three rows of soldiers behind them, the local version of the Valkyrior.  
Loki approved. And though of how very much Brunnhilde would approve, in a quickly squashed pang.

“Loki”, Rogers said, his arms crossed.

“Captain Rogers. I would like to speak with my brother.”

“He reported you dead”, Romanov said in a deceptively low voice.

“I was.”  
There was no way they had told Thor they were coming. Thor would have already been shaking him like an unruly kitten, if he knew he was here.

Potts and Jane were slowly migrating over to the two Avengers, shaking hands. Hela stood by Loki’s side, seeming bored.

Jane said: “Loki has a plan. He and I touched one of the infinity stones each, once. We might be able to call them, if we’re in close enough proximity.”

Loki inclined his head in thanks to her. 

Rogers nodded slowly.  
“We are tracking the metal of the gauntlet, and trying to wake Vision.”

Romanov added: “He had a connection with the mind stone.”

Loki smiled. “Three out of six, not too bad.”

Rogers sighed.  
“Come on, liesmith, tell me why we should trust you.”

Loki was tired of this. But he needed Rogers on his side most of all. Where he went, the others would follow.  
“Because this is me, just me this time. You have never met the real me before.” At least truth could still be twisted.

“Thanos”, Romanov muttered.

Loki agreed: “Thanos.” He wondered if that name would become a curse word, over time.

Rogers smiled coldly. “Just like that? ‘It was Thanos’ fault’?”

The last vestiges of Loki’s patience ran out.  
“Oh no, not quite. He caught me at an inconvenient point in time, when I was shaken to the core about my identity, in need of shelter and some basic feeling of where I fit in the universe, for I had just shaken off a heavy amount of brainwashing. I was therefore, shall we say, primed for his own brand of it.”

His human audience looked startled, apart from the Wakandan Valkyries.  
He smiled at Romanov and added:  
“People are so easy to turn against all they ever stood for in that state.” He lifted both eyebrows and asked: “Wouldn’t you agree?” At least the truth could also be twisted to be the knife cutting deepest.

Romanov was still good at masks. If he hadn’t known her through Barton’s eyes, he would not have been able to see the rage simmering below it. She understood exactly what he was saying.  
Either Loki was guilty as charged, but then so was Barton, or both of them were victims.

Potts said: “You are an Aesir!” Smart women, she too had caught on.

“A god of trickery and lies”, Rogers added.

Jane shook her head. “Can we all just agree to a temporary alliance, alright?”

Romanov inclined her head a little. “That kind of thinking earns you a knife in the back.”

Hela asked:  
“Truly, brother, do we need all of these?”

Steve asked:  
“And who are you?”

Hela smiled, cocked her hip and started her spiel of goddess of death, rightful queen and so on, but Loki was already looking up, where startlingly dark clouds formed in an otherwise clear blue sky.

The Wakandan Valkyrior started parting at the back, making way for someone coming through.

Loki cleared his throat. He truly, truly didn’t want to do this.  
There was nothing he wanted more.

Then the Avengers let Thor through as well, like water parting for a mountain, and with a few long, measured strides, Thor was there, right in front of him, carefully, slowly pulling him into his arms like he would turn to dust any second now.

Loki’s arms came up without his mind being involved. Slowly, the pressure of Thor’s arms around him increased, and a few fat drops of rain started falling, precursors for a truly impressive thunderstorm brewing above them.

With a whisper so croaked Loki could barely decypher it, Thor said into his hair:  
“Loki...”

He could feel Thor start to shake, and this would not do, not at all. Not in front of all of them.  
Loki said in a low voice: “Would you be able to crush me, brother, were I not right here?” 

Thor’s arms tightened even further, bits of their armour biting into Loki’s flesh. Then, suddenly, he let go, and the skies above them cleared rapidly.

The soft smile that had stolen over Loki’s face seeped away as they met eyes. It wasn’t so much the artificial brown one that made Loki’s stomach drop. It was the bone-deep emptiness in the other one.

Thor smiled at him, but he looked like a painting. Handsome, but dead.

It was just as Loki had feared it would be. The god of thunder, of triumph and abundance had lost too much too quickly. And even getting Loki back did nothing to erase that.

Finally, for the first time since Thanos’ hand had crushed Loki’s windpipe, he could feel his old mask settle over his features again.

Thor might hate him for all eternity. But Loki had made the right choice.


	9. Three out of six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breathe out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, I don't have a regular beta reader, English isn't my native language, and spellcheck can only do so much. I am therefore very happy with any typos being pointed out! :)

Nat fell into step with him as Clint made his way back up to the palace, carrying his morning market haul of fruit he’d never seen or even heard of.

“Saw the spaceship arrive?” she asked, way too conversationally. Now the spaceship itself, eh. But Nat’s oh so casual tone? That had his neck hair rise.

“...yeah?”

She glanced at him, but didn’t say anything further. Fine then, off to safe grounds. Clint tried to think of what on earth kind of trouble could have arrived to make her want to get him away from public view before she told him. He’d kind of assumed they were friends of Thor - at least since nobody had fired on them.

Someone from Thanos’ side of things? But Nat wasn’t preparing to fight. 

At least she didn’t let him stew in his own theories for long. The had barely cleared the outer perimeter of the building as she said:  
“Loki.”

Clint walked on for a few more steps, but then he slowed down to a full stop.  
Was Nat saying anything else? He wasn’t sure. She did take his basket from him.

Loki was in that building.

Maybe his aids were glitching. White noise wasn’t a new experience for Clint. And the way his view had focused on the entryway with the security guards a few yards away from them made sense, didn’t it? It led to Loki after all.

Nat’s hand between his shoulder blades was unnaturally warm. Oh, no, his skin had just turned numb with what he’d automatically interpreted as cold.

Another hand on his chest, pressing down.

Right, breathing out. That was the first order of business. He could even hear Coulson say it, as if he was actually talking in his earpiece.  
Breathe out, Clint. The rest will take care of itself. Just breathe out.

Alright, fine, he was having a panic attack.  
He forced out a whispered: “I hate this.”

He couldn’t hear the words of Nat’s answer but the tired tone of yeah, she knew, she was right here with him.  
He closed his eyes and huffed out a long breath. God, he loved her.  
Whatever else shitty thing might go on, she was right there with him.

Breathe out, Clint. Out.  
He managed another long exhale, then heard another echo of Coulson’s voice: “Did you know-”  
Right. Next: Distract yourself.

“Laura wants you to come home with me, after this.”

He could feel Nat freeze at is side.  
“...what?”

“I told her I know. That she’s an agent. That we never met before-”  
Before Loki.

Clint opened his eyes and saw the world expand again and gain back color.

“I know Steve needs you more. But… well.”

He glanced at Nat, then snorted at her expression. He put a hand on the one on his chest and smiled gently at the traces of vulnerability she let him see below the amused bewilderment.  
“I could use your help with the pool project.”

Nat snorted, then pulled her hands away.

Clint took a deep breath, his chest still aching.  
“What does he want.”

“Same as us, apparently: Get back at Thanos. He brought his sister and Dr.Foster.”

Clint blinked. “The one who found Thor? Worked with Selvig?”

Nat nodded. “She apparently wielded the reality stone once. And Loki connected with the tesseract.”

“Thor said Thanos killed him.”

“Yeah, but he faked his death twice before, so.”

“And… his sister?”

“Hela. Calls herself goddess of death.”

“And Steve trusts them?”

“No, and neither does Thor.” That was a surprise. Clint took up his basket again and they resumed walking.

Nat continued after a few steps: “I think Loki has a ton of cards up his sleeve yet. But Steve can handle him.”

Clint nodded. “Okay. You keep it that way, I check on Thor.” Which assigned Loki as his responsibility first.

She glanced at him, but didn’t ask if he was sure. 

He threw her a grateful half-smile for that.

Once they were inside, their new bracelets vibrated slightly. Nat opened her message first:  
“Vision is waking up.”

 

They could hear the argument before they even opened the doors to the lab area.

Nat hurried down the steps to where Shuri had been working on Vision, Clint hung back a little.

Pepper was saying in a very loud and angry voice:  
“Well apparently you needed the help!”

General Okoye’s voice filled the room:  
“This is not about her helping in this! This is a matter of national security and sovereignty! This is an invasion!”

Clint stopped on the middle of the staircase, looking down on the situation.

Vision was still on his table, but he looked better, as if he had slightly... more color? Shuri was moving fast, switching between scanning him and working at her interfaces. Pepper was in a stare-off with Okoye, Steve and Nakia next to them, all four had their arms crossed.  
Nat fluidly inserted herself into that situation.

Over where the high windows offered a breathtaking view, Loki was leaning his back against the glass, smiling slightly at Clint.

Clint stared back and didn’t manage not to swallow. Then he jerked up his chin and frowned. Loki’s smile got toned down a bit, and he inclined his head in what looked like an actually respectful greeting.

Clint could feel his adrenaline spike. Antagonism would have been easier to deal with. This politeness could only mean the fucker wanted something from him.

Nat had managed to get the volume of the verbal fight down, so when Shuri called out:  
“Everybody shut UP!”, they actually did.  
“I think I got it!”

Clint twitched as Friday’s voice answered from the speakers:  
“Indeed. Alpha and beta waves are now harmonized.”

Clint stared at Loki again and tried to figure out why the Aesir would smuggle in Friday. Wakanda had been the last holdout. And while Friday was indeed helping all over the world, she was also firmly Tony’s AI. But it must have been Loki, surely.

On the table, Vision groaned. It was the first human sound Clint had heard him make since he’d arrived.

Steve, Nat and Pepper moved to his side.

Vision’s eyes opened, and they were full of life.

Friday said:  
“Welcome back, Vision. You have been inactive for three days, six hours and forty-two minutes.”

Shuri was scanning him and smiling down at him.  
“Hey.”

He blinked and said:  
“Wanda.”

Clint inhaled and decided to leave, but his feet didn’t move.

Steve, his arms still crossed, said:  
“She’s dead.”

Nat punched his arm.  
“Steve! For fuck’s sake!”

Vision closed his eyes again, his face contorting in pain so acute, it was easy to identify even from Clint’s awkward viewing angle.

Steve nodded at that, and said with a half-shrug: “Sorry.”  
Clint’s gut felt cold at the thought of Steve checking in the fastest, most efficient way if Vision was still more than a robot by basically punching his heart.

Then he looked at Loki again. Steve was Nat’s mission.  
Loki came over to the table. Vision made no attempts to stand up, obviously lost in his pain.

Loki’s slippery voice broke the silence:  
“We might be able to get her back.”

Two seconds later, Steve had his collar in his hands and was pushing him back against the glass.  
“You fucking monster! How dare you try and bait us with that!”  
Clint send a quick message to Thor to come the fuck down to the lab already.

Vision however was getting up with a fluid motion, gratefully accepting Shuri’s steadying hand.

“I am not baiting you”, Loki said carefully. “And I make no guarantees. But I did commission another gauntlet from the dwarves.”

Steve pulled him up and pushed him against the glass. Clint could hear Loki’s head crack against it all the way to the staircase.

Loki lifted both hands.  
“I didn’t say anything before, because we had nobody who could wield it.” He pointed to Vision. “Now we have.”

Steve let him down for a second, just to put both hands around his neck. “Stop lying!!”  
Loki’s eyes turned large, and he suddenly started to fight back, but mindlessly, utterly uncoordinated.

“I don’t think he can”, another voice drawled from the area below the staircase. “Lie, that is”, the woman who stepped out of the shadows continued.

From behind Clint, Thor’s voice thundered through the room:  
“LET HIM GO!”

Steve stepped back with a jerky move, turned to the side and trapped his hands in his own armpits, hunching over.

The woman had the same hair and much the same gait as Loki. Hela, Clint supposed. She walked over to where she could glance up at Thor.  
“I mean, I have heard him called liesmith, but I haven’t heard him tell a single untruth since he rescued me from the ruins of Asgard.”

Thor, who had rushed past Clint, stopped on the last few steps to stare at her.

Loki had crumbled at the windows, legs splayed where he’d fallen, hands at his own throat, breathing loud enough for Clint to hear. His hair hid his face.

“He does nothing but lie”, Steve spit out.

“Were I Death”, the woman said, “this would be the first thing I’d do, if an upstart Jotunn decided to try and play me: Kill his ability to lie.”

Thor’s voice still had an echo of pure power, but didn’t carry as much authority as his previous order, which all but Steve and Hela were still petrified by.  
“Hela, what are you talking about.”

She turned to smile at Thor.  
“Why brother, did he not tell you yet? He made a deal with Death.” She waved her hand around and pursed her lips as if in generosity. “And I’d rather not see him killed before he gets to implement that cute fraction of a plan he has.”

Not that she minded volunteering a potentially crippling theory of hers. Clint made a note to assign her to Nat. He already had one god of chaos on his watch.

Thor stepped further down and walked towards his brother.  
“Loki?” he said, sounding angry. Then he walked faster, went down on one knee and carefully cupped Loki’s face in one hand. “Loki?” he asked, gentler.

Steve averted his gaze, looking down with a dark frown. His shoulders were still hunched. Nat went to his side, put one hand on his back.

Clint focused back on the Asgardian brothers. Thor was murmuring something to Loki, who nodded weakly and drew in a shaky breath.  
Breathe out, Clint thought. Out.

Thor slowly stood, and without turning to Steve he said:  
“Thanos throttled him, then broke his neck.” Then he met Steve’s eyes, and didn’t need to say anything for Clint to tense and for Nat to move her hand to the concealed knife she carried, until Steve nodded in shame and mumbled:  
“I’m sorry.”

Pepper, both hands on her belly - oh, Clint thought. Oh. - carefully said:  
“He’s right though. This is bait. We all want somebody back, desperately enough to eat out of his hands if he promises us any hope.”

Princess Shuri absently tipped her pad against the table a few times.  
“We have a road to travel via the quantum realm, we have leads to hunt down to find Thanos, we have three people who can call stones to them, we have a new gauntlet to put them in, we have someone to wield it, and we have the element of surprise. It’s not bait if it’s not an empty promise.”

Loki’s voice was very rough as he corrected:  
“Three people who might be able to claim the loyalty of the stones, the dwarves might be able to create a new gauntlet if they managed to reignite Nidavellir, and Vision might be able to wield it. We have a chance at success, but it is small.”

“See?” Hela waved at him. “It would be so much easier to do this with finely crafted lies.”

Thor helped Loki up and stared into his eyes.  
“Is this true?”

Loki snickered tiredly.  
“If I say yes, you still don’t know the answer.”

Thor lowered his head until their brows touched.  
“Yes I will.”

Okoye exhaled in annoyance.  
“Meanwhile, a foreign AI invaded all of our systems!”

Pepper turned on her heel to snarl:  
“She’s a friend!”

Clint tuned out the reigniting fight about Friday to focus on Thor’s shoulders nearly completely shielding Loki from the room.  
Huh.  
A glance to their, uh, sister apparently revealed her watching them just as sharply.

Hela. Goddess of death. Actively sabotaging the plan she ostensibly wanted to watch unfold.

Nat was busy talking down Steve, who looked torn between bleak self-hatred and berserker rage.

Clint cleared his throat and asked:  
“So… who destroyed Asgard again?”  
She turned to him with one eyebrow lifted very high.

“Oh my, and who are you?”

Thor turned around to say: “She will be brought to justice, after the upcoming battle. But she is a formidable fighter, and we have none to spare.”

Clint met Loki’s eyes for the second before the trickster disappeared as if behind an invisible veil, lined with greenish light. Loki spared him a tiny nod of gratitude.  
Clint’s stomach roiled. He didn’t like that he’d read the situation right. He didn’t like it at all, but there was no denying it.

He had a connection with Loki, and he was correctly assigned to keep an eye on him.

Another shared glance, this time with Nat, who’d noticed Loki’s disappearance act.

The debate in the middle of the room was by now also joined by Vision and Shuri, Thor and Hela, and it was unclear if it was about Friday or Hela or both anymore.

Steve squared his shoulders and waded in to break it up and call everyone to order.  
Behind Clint, Rocket said:  
“...wow.”

Clint turned to smile at him.  
“Hey”, he said. “Wanna try out really ugly native fruit with me?”


	10. Never doubt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ve been avoiding me, brother.”

Loki brought the news of Vision’s reawakening to Jane and Hope, who immediately roped him into their work. Friday was a great help, since they had to start with huge knowledge gaps and pure theory.

In the evening, Colonel Rhodes arrived with Captain Carol Danvers, and they put their heads together with General Okoye, Rogers and Romanov.  
Loki knew about Danvers from Friday, and made a note to himself to determine if she, too, might be able to wield the gauntlet.

It was fascinating to learn how Jane translated Aesir magic into human technology and back. Loki remembered that she had met his mother, and for a moment, let himself feel the echo of Frigga in some of her words.  
Hope was very pragmatic and brilliant for a human, and the three of them plus Friday made some headway, while Scott Lang brought them a steady supply of coffee and snacks.

Shuri joined them later, and while Jane and Scott went to bed, Shuri, Hope and Loki started to develop the devices that would let them travel through the Quantum Realm, and track the gauntlet, too.  
Shuri quickly called Rocket to help, and he and Hope started fighting immediately. It seemed very productive, but Loki and Shuri were simply left behind.  
Vision joined the team shortly afterwards, while Shuri and Loki bowed out.

 

Loki walked next to Shuri instead of slinking away via magic without even thinking about it. Frigga had taught him manners, after all. The silence in the corridor, only interrupted by their soft steps, was peaceful, after the busy energy of the lab.

Out of nowhere Shuri asked:  
“Would you teach me magic?”

He glanced down at her.  
“Why would I?”

She shrugged.  
“Why not?”

He smiled at that. What a sharp little mind to know exactly how to rope Loki into anything. Why not indeed.  
“We do have quite an agenda though, don’t we.”

“I mean: After.”

“After we’ve won?” He smiled wider, his chest hurting.

She nodded and shrugged again.

“Maybe”, he hedged.

“Is it true, that you can’t lie?”

“Yes”, he said, and threw her a sharp grin.

She rolled her eyes at the implied ambiguity, then nodded. “Come with me.”

They went further down than the labs, deeper into the mountain, through quite a few heavily guarded doors. Shuri managed to hide from Loki how exactly she was scanned to open two of them.

Finally, they reached a relatively small room, housing one pod, its transparent hull whitened with frost. Inside, a tall, dark man.

“We kept Sergeant Barnes like this for a while, until I knew how to heal him.”

Loki slowly walked around the pod, taking it in. Neither did he know Barnes, nor the man inside the pod. He lifted an eyebrow at the princess.

“This is my cousin N’Jadaka, son of my father’s brother, who was a traitor to Wakanda. My father killed him, abandoned my cousin, and when he finally found his way back here, he took the throne from T’Challa. My mother, Nakia and I fled. We thought T’Challa was dead.  
N’Jadaka wanted to open the country, to use our tech to help black people all over the world. But he also wanted to force the world to its knees. To force peace through war.”

She glanced at Loki, who nodded for her to continue.  
“We found T’Challa, came back, and T’Challa fought him, and won. N’Jadaka thought he would die, and requested that my brother should not help him. See, he didn’t want to be imprisoned. Instead, he wanted his ashes to be spread over the Atlantic.”

Loki leaned his shoulder against the pod and crossed his arms and legs. Shuri sighed and fiddled with the pad in her hand.  
“But he was alive when our healers found him. Barely, but clinging on. T’Challa was… in a lot of pain. He gave them N’Jadaka’s burial wishes, but not what to do if he was still alive. So when they asked me for help to heal him, I… decided to shelve the decision… to shelve him.”  
Shuri gestured to the pod.

Loki looked at the profile of the frozen man next to him.  
“You imprisoned him.”

“He doesn’t know it!” Shuri protested, then gnawed on her lower lip. “But yes.” She lifted her chin. “I did.”

After a drawn-out moment, Loki nodded at her again, to prompt her to go on.

She sighed heavily, swallowed, then said:  
“T’Challa was dusted. The council is preparing to have me crowned as soon as possible.”

“Ah”, Loki said. “But your cousin has more of a right to this throne than you do.”

Her voice turned lower, less self-assured.  
“I’m good in the lab, I really am. And I’m young, but not stupid. I have very good people at my back.” She looked at him.  
“But I don’t want to reign Wakanda.”

“And worse yet, you want him to reign even less.”

“But what way to start a reign if I do it while keeping N’Jadaka frozen like this? Trapped between life and death?”

Loki pondered how much easier her life would be if her cousin had been dusted. He nodded his understanding, then startled out of his leaning position.  
“Do you request my counsel?”

She smiled impishly. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it with a grain of salt and a heavy dose of doubt. But, Loki of Asgard, you too have a murderous family member with more right to a throne than you do. If Thor died, and Hela was frozen like this, what would you do?”

“Hela was willing to kill all Asgardians to force her way. She lost her right to that throne. She squandered it. There is no arguing if maybe she had been right.”

Shuri nodded slowly.  
“We determine the king or queen in a fight. Anyone willing to challenge the heir has their chance to do so. N’Jadaka won, fair and square - only, it’s a battle to surrender or death, and T’Challa did neither, just fell from the battlefield. When he came back, they resumed their fight, and T’Challa won. All in all, N’Jadaka didn’t commit any actual crime.”

Loki lifted an eyebrow.  
“Would you be able to best N’Jadaka in a fight?”

“No. T’Challa, maybe, because against me he would hold back.” She sighed. “Although I’d never have challenged my brother. He was a great king.” Her voice sounded brittle as she added: “I loved him.”

“You could still kill your cousin - it’s what he wanted.”

“He was out of his mind. If you would get now what you once wanted when you were out of your mind, would you be grateful?”

He could still hear the whispers in the back of his mind, taunting him, demanding he take what he was due as a son of a king. Once, an eternity ago, he’d just wanted to hasten Thor’s excruciatingly slow learning curve. While conserving his own standing, of course. And he'd not been adverse to see Thor brought down, humiliated and in pain. Oh no, he'd rather enjoyed that. After Laufey’s death, he’d given up on Thor and his place in Asgard. He’d let go, wished just to be free of the place for once.  
But only Thanos and his children had truly turned Loki out of his mind. And for a while, all he had wanted was power, and destruction. Sure, a small, terrified part of him had banked on Thor showing up if he made enough of a racket on earth. But he’d never truly believed they could stop Thanos. So he’d simply reacted.  
There wasn’t much he’d wanted when he’d been out of his mind.

In the dimness of the room, the blue light of the pod was reflected by Shuri’s dark skin, and her white clothes shone bright. For a second Loki thought he saw the shadowy Valkyrie who had escorted him to the realm of Death.  
He swallowed and pushed the thought down, hard.

“I certainly said quite a few things when I visited earth last that I would like to be ignored.”

Shuri nodded. “I don’t think he wanted to die. He just didn’t want to live, and especially not in captivity.”

“You would let him walk free?”

“I would let him join my council. We need his perspective. But we have to avoid his methods.”

Loki took a deep breath.  
“Either you trust him to listen to your offer, or you kill him, or you betray who you are. Those are your options.”

Another nod. “Well then. I can always kill him later.” She didn’t smile.

 

***********************

 

The only reason Thor managed to surprise him on the way back to his quarters was because Loki was still deep in thought, contemplating Wakandan justice and the mind of a young princess.

The large hand on his shoulder immediately clamped down hard, and Loki gave a full-body jerk.

“You’ve been avoiding me, brother.”

Loki turned to Thor, smiling innocently.  
“I’m sorry if it looked that way.”

Thor sighed. “Who needs lies when one owns a silver tongue, hmm, Loki? Why avoid me? Are you not happy to see me?”

Loki felt his smile turn a little painful.  
“It is true that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see you again, but I’m glad you’re well, brother.”  
Sharp pain laced through him, and he quickly corrected himself: “Ah, alive.”

Thor inclined his head.  
“I am well.”

Loki rolled his eyes but didn’t protest that ridiculous claim.

“So why avoid me?”

“I am unable to lie, brother. What more explanation do you need.”

“What would you lie to me about? That you had a plan when I thought you were committing a noble sacrifice?”  
Thor’s hand went to Loki’s neck. “Just because you knew how to make a deal with Death does not diminish the heroism of your attack on Thanos.”

Loki gave him an unimpressed look.  
“I attacked him with a small knife. There was no heroism in that, but a lot of reckless abandon.”

Thor sighed.  
“Is it that you took the Tesseract? That it lead Thanos to the ark?”

Loki flinched.

His brother nodded slowly.  
“Did you plan on leading him to us?”

“Of course not!” Loki freed himself from Thor’s grasp with an angry jerk.

“So you thought it would might give you something to bargain with?”

Loki shook his head reluctantly.  
“To be honest, brother, there wasn’t much thinking involved.” And what an unhappy realization that was, how often he'd done things without even a scrap of strategic thinking being involved.

Thor nodded.

Now Loki put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. He said in a low voice:  
“You realize that I mean to get the ark back as well, don’t you?”

“Was that the deal you made with Death? For the ark?”

“Yes.” Loki smiled at Thor, but still couldn’t find the fire in the blue eye. It was missing like Asgard was missing from the fabric of space.

“And what does Death get from you for that?”

Loki smiled wider. “Did you know that Thanos is in love with Death? She rejected him, and now he is trying to court her or best her, or both, and generally makes himself into a huge nuisance for her. We’re to stop him for her.”

“Best Thanos, and she will give us back the ark?”

Loki nodded and spread both arms as if to invite applause.

Thor’s expression was a sad caricature of his former easy smiles.  
“And is that all?”

Loki let his arms fall and huffed a breath.  
“No. But I will not tell you the rest.” He gestured the whole topic to the side and pursed his lips. “It is not of your concern.”

“Ah”, Thor nodded. “I see. So lying to yourself is still within your means.” Some anger shone through the tiredness in his face.

Loki frowned slightly and searched his face.

Above them, a small tone rang out, then Friday’s voice came up, filled with satisfaction:  
“Mr. Stark is in orbit, receiving permission to land in Wakanda.”

Loki’s shoulders sank a bit. And there went his shiny new AI, back to papa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments seriously keep this burning! I appreciate every single one! :)


	11. Until we meet again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony looked old.

Tony looked old.

Clint had always assumed a certain amount of makeup involved in the playboy’s looks, but even the thickest layers of the best brands wouldn’t have been able to cover up how Tony seemed to have aged since he’d last seen him. His hair was grey.

Steve, Rhodey and Pepper had taken a helicopter to the crash site of the spaceship that Tony and an alien named Nebula had rigged up. They had warned everyone that the ship was built to bring them to earth and down to ground, but not much more, and asked for a good “landing spot to crash in”.

The billowing smoke could still be seen on the horizon.

Tony and Nebula had made it through the crash fine, and apparently, nobody else had been with them anyway.  
Dr. Stephen Strange and Peter Parker aka Spiderman were moved from the MIA to the ‘dusted’ list.

Now Pepper was clinging to Tony’s side, Rhodey was walking on his other, one hand on Tony’s shoulder, and Steve was talking with the blue-skinned woman coming up behind them.

Bruce, Vision, Thor, Natasha and Clint were waiting for him outside. Soft words and tight hugs were exchanged.  
Tony’s eyes were large and dark and wet, and Clint actually hugged him back when it was his turn. 

Vision whispered something when he was hugging Tony, and Tony clung to him more tightly, his face contorting. Clint could see him whisper back:  
“No you didn’t. Get a brain you idiot.”

Nebula crossed her arms, and her sharp voice whipped through the moment.  
“Tell me you lot have a plan.”

“We do”, Steve said. “We’re still missing puzzle pieces, but we do.”

Tony turned to them and asked:  
“For revenge?”

Steve looked uncomfortable.  
“No. I mean, yes, but not only. A plan to undo what Thanos did.”

Nebula snorted.  
“I just want to see him suffer.”

Bruce huffed a breath. “That might not be possible.”

Steve ushered them all inside.  
“Let’s meet the rest, get some introductions done, put all the pieces we have on the table, and figure out the rest.”

He fell into step next to Tony while walking, looked at him and added: “I feel our chances have just turned for the better.”

Tony’s answering smile was a little weak, but Clint could see his mask slowly creep back into place.  
Clint glanced at Natasha, who nodded slightly and then said:  
“Tony, Loki is here.”

Tony stopped walking immediately.

Nat continued:  
“Long story. He wants to bring Thanos down, too, and brought us some puzzle pieces for the plan.”

“You’re joking”, Tony said angrily.

Steve put a hand on his shoulder.  
“Tony, listen.”

“I am listening! Am I not listening? I think I’m being very reasonable!”

Nebula asked Rhodey, who by chance stood closest to her:  
“Loki Laufeyson?”

“Odinson.”

“Same guy.”

“You know Loki?”

“My father had some troubles breaking him in.”

That brought her all the attention.

Rhodey cleared his throat, mumbled that he knew he’d regret asking this, but: “”Who’s your father?”

Nebula spit out: “Thanos.”  
Her furious hatred was so clear that Tony, who’d obviously been ready to launch into a monologue for her defense, simply closed his mouth again.

Natasha said:  
“He said Thanos sent the Chitauri, and that he’d been just a pawn.”

“No he didn’t”, Steve corrected. “He implied that he was a victim of Thanos before he even came to earth. But he only outright said something general about brainwashing.”

Tony sneered at Steve.  
“Oh, good strategy to get on your good side.”

Steve looked startled, and hurt, and Tony took a deep breath and averted his eyes in apology.

Bruce said:  
“He also said he can’t lie.”

Tony turned to Thor, who’d stood at the side, arms crossed, glaring at the floor.  
“You believe him?”

“Yes”, Thor said. For a moment, they all waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

Nebula shrugged.  
“Makes sense that he’d hate Thanos. And he’s a good wizard.”

Steve resumed walking, prompting everyone to move with him again.

Clint sidled up to Natasha and had a quick and furious non-verbal debate about which of them would also take on trying to keep Tony in check.  
In the end, Nat jerked her head towards Nebula and glared at him, he sighed and nodded, and that was that. Tony was Nat’s, and he got another alien.

They really needed to have a word with Rhodey to see if he could join their little wannabe Coulson squad of semi-competent pseudo-SHIELD handlers.

Inside, General Okoye welcomed them, asked them to submit to full-body scans, since both of them could be counted as weapons themselves, told Tony to de-install Friday as soon as possible, and invited them all to be guests of honor at the coronation ritual for Princess Shuri that afternoon.

Rocket had also waited for them inside. While Tony threw himself into what he would call ‘an energetic discussion’ with General Okoye, Rocket came up to Nebula and asked:  
“Where’s the others.”

Nebula shook her head slightly.

“They can’t have all been dusted, come on.”

Clint twitched, ready to defend Rocket as Nebula made a jerky move, but then he relaxed, as she slowly came down onto one knee to pull Rocket into the single most awkward hug Clint had ever witnessed.

Thor stood close by and asked:  
“The whole crew?”

Nebula nodded, and Clint could see Rocket’s small furry frame shake in her blue arms.

Thor put a hand on Rocket’s head, smushing his fuzzy little ears down a bit.  
“They were good people. Let us not lose hope that we might gain them back my friend.”

The pure hatred on Nebula’s face was a sight to behold. She spit out:  
“He killed Gamora to get the soul stone. We can’t undo that!”

Rocket leaned back a bit and exclaimed:  
“Ha, so you do like her!”

“Did”, Nebula hissed. “I loved her. She was my sister.”

Rocket nodded, the fur of his face wet with tears. “Yeah. Mine too, kind of.” He shrugged self-consciously.

Nebula pulled him back into a tight hug, and this time, she buried her face in the fur of his small shoulder.

Clint and Thor exchanged a glance and turned away to give them a moment. It was time to check on the missing chaos gods anyway.

 

When Clint finally found Loki, he was in Shuri’s lab, fiddling with the amazing coffee machine there, and Steve had beat Clint to the target.  
Clint slunk back into the corner by the stairwell and settled to watch them.

Steve was currently saying:  
“For fuck’s sake, stop! I’m trying to apologize!”

Loki, who’d concentrated on the coffee slowly dripping out, turned to him and straightened up.  
“Why? We’re not friends, you and I. Is my brother giving you a hard time?”

“No, Thor is barely talking. Listen.”  
Steve was squaring his shoulders, visibly searching for words.

Loki cocked his head and lifted both eyebrows. After a moment he said:  
“Yeeees?”

“Nebula said Thanos broke you.”

Loki’s blink was well-covered, but betrayed his being startled nonetheless.  
“Nebula?”

“One of his children. She seemed to know you.”

“... we met.”

Steve leaned forward a little, making himself appear smaller. Clint had watched him do that sometimes, and concluded that it was an unconscious gesture.  
“Listen. I shouldn’t have attacked you, and I’m sorry. And… I’m not just sorry because of what happened to you, because I shouldn’t have attacked you anyway.”

“I did attack New York. And you, personally.”

“But you came here with a truce.” Steve squared his shoulders again. They were firmly back inside of Steve’s comfort zone of military life. Clint huffed a small, fond breath.

Loki frowned at Steve.  
“Well”, he said, obviously thrown. “Uhm. I forgive you?”

Steve shook his head in amused exasperation. “Apology accepted is enough.”

“Apology accepted then.” Loki blinked slowly, then said: “I’m sorry for New York.”

Steve crossed his arms. “Are you?”

“Yes. Probably not as much as I should be... Odin’s, ah, let’s call it unique style of governing lead us to battlefields quite often. And mortals die.”

“There better be a ‘but’”, Steve said, but without much fire. “A lot of civilians died in New York. You might have killed before, but if it was in war, I should hope those were soldiers.”

Loki snorted.  
“As if humanity’s wars only kill soldiers.”

Now Steve shifted his weight, and so did Clint, seeing the anger grow in the line of his back.  
“Didn’t you want to apologize for New York?”

“Apologize? I rather think I can’t. But I am sorry. I’m sorry I did Thanos’ dirty work for him.” Loki shrugged. “I still can’t see how I could have avoided it, and there definitely was a part of me that enjoyed himself immensely.”  
Loki lifted a hand at was was surely a storm brewing on Steve’s face.  
“But I am sorry.”

Steve took a deep breath, uncrossed his arms and relaxed his shoulders.  
“Guess that’s as good as it gets.”

“So. Why did you attack me? That was very unlike you, wasn’t it.”

Steve didn’t say anything for a moment, then said calmly: “Thanos broke me, too.”

Loki smiled, and Clint frowned at the sight of it, it seemed sad and utterly genuine.  
“No he didn’t, Captain. Oh, he obviously broke your heart, killed a loved one, I assume? But you’re still very much yourself. You do realize they all follow your lead, yes?”

Steve exhaled. “Not all of them.”

“Well, most of them. Which reminds me, could you tell your little spy to stop watching my every step?”

Steve inclined his head a little, and Loki pointed at Clint, then looked up to him.  
“It’s rather annoying.”

Clint leaned forward out of the shadow and called down:  
“Where’s Hela?”

“Doing a better job at avoiding you, it seems!”

Steve sighed:  
“Anyway. You might want to repeat that apology to Tony, when you see him.”

“I didn’t apologize.” Loki took his cup and sipped at the fresh coffee.

Steve took another deep, calming breath, as they both turned to walk up the stairs.


	12. Don't fear the reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What a gift."

As Loki expected, Hela showed up for the coronation ritual. He didn’t know where she had disappeared to until then - maybe she’d wanted to spend some time with Fenrir.  
Wakanda had refused housing him inside of the city, so he roamed the hills of the Jabari.

Loki could only hope she didn’t find a way to wriggle out of his plan.  
But of course she wouldn’t miss the local version of royal pomp and grandeur. 

Apparently the ritual wasn’t supposed to happen this close after the previous iteration, but T’Challa’s dusting left Wakanda no choice.  
While everyone ceremonially walked to their positions in the beautiful waterscape that was to be the arena, Loki asked his sister:  
“Did you ever actually want to usurp father’s power, seize the throne of Asgard from under him?”

“Only after he decided to cast me aside.” Hela shrugged. “I know, I should have known better. But alas, he was my father.”

He glanced at her.  
“Were you content, at his side? I wonder if I could stand by Thor’s side and watch his blunders without losing my mind…”

“Odin didn’t blunder!” She looked actually astonished at his audacity. “Oh sure, the witch turned him into an old fool, but with me at his side, he was the Allfather supreme, the god of gods!”

“So being next to power, instead of having it yourself, that is enough?”

“Of course it is, little cuckoo, if it is the kind of power you cannot possess yourself, it can be pure joy.”

Music and drums started. The non-Wakandan guests of the spectacle watched from the outer edge, high above the courtiers and nobles, while those danced and sung.

“But why doubt him? Why did you think his move towards peace was a blunder after all?”

“Because it meant giving his power away! It diminished us all! He was the god of war! What did he want to be, the god of peace?!”

“Why not?”

“Pathetic.”

“At least he was the god of an idea, not of a person. I was wondering, since you seem to know that Death is an entity, aren’t you rather her priestess?”

Hela smirked. “I’m not a priestess. If anything, I have priestesses. I am the goddess. She is the entity. Don’t play daft, Jotun.”

Below them, N’Jadaka walked out of the shadows, calling forth a hiccup in the music and several exclamations of anger, shock and fear from the audience. While the drums faltered, he prowled over to challenge Shuri, who stood painted, adorned and very small, with her back to the gaping abyss. She lifted her fists and spread her stance.

“I see. So did you do it on purpose? Kill the Valkyries in Hel, condemning them?”

Hela lifted an eyebrow and turned to him.  
“Condemning them?”

Down below in the shallow basin, N’Jadaka and Shuri clashed together and fought hard, fast and very dirty.

“Their purpose was to lead warriors from the battlefield to the afterlife. I mean. They were supposed to kill warriors. But the story that was always told, their official, legendary purpose, oft retold? Lead warriors to the afterlife.”

Hela’s smile was very sharp and unfriendly.  
“Aww. Is that what she has them do?”

With a shrill scream, Shuri launched herself against N’Jadaka, toppled him with a swift, whirling move, then pushed his head under water.  
N’Jadaka yielded only seconds later.

Loki shook his head in grudging admiration.  
“What a gift.”

“Indeed”, Hela smiled.

Shuri helped N’Jadaka up, her lip, nose and one ear bleeding. N’Jadaka threw his arm in a tight circle, and Loki winced slightly, imagining he could hear the crunch of the shoulder finding back into its socket up to where they were standing.  
The crowd was going crazy with relief and delight, chanting her name.

 

Later, when they all came together for a general briefing, N’Jadaka grabbed Loki’s arm. Loki looked at that hand with eyebrows raised, but N’Jadaka didn’t let go, simply pulling him aside for a word.

“I saw what you told Shuri.”

“...saw? Not heard? How hard did she hit your head?”

N’Jadaka rolled his eyes. “She was recording your little counseling session.”

Smart girl.  
Loki shrugged.

“Your plan is to get your people back”, N’Jadaka said, and then smiled humorlessly. “Where do you plan to settle them?”

“You’ll have to ask Thor that.”

N’Jadaka looked unimpressed. “Sure. Just: Not here. Got it?”

Loki smiled slightly. “My my, you are a true patriot. Wakanda first, hmm?”

There was a lot of fire in the dark eyes meeting his, even if the voice was very cool and calm.  
“I meant, not here on earth.”

“You know that humanity once worshipped us as gods, yes? We might be your overlords still.”

N’Jadaka snorted. “Yeah, tell me with a straight face that you think you’re any better’n me, and all it’ll get you is your next enemy lined up. But then, you can’t lie, can you?”

Loki just wasn’t used to so much direct confrontation. Oh, Thor had tried, but Thor had always been so far off target that it didn’t matter.  
This mattered.

Another snort, then N’Jadaka said: “Yeah. Stay away from earth after this.”

“I don’t think we shall”, Loki mused. Then he smiled: “This should prove to be interesting. I thank you for the warning.”

N’Jadaka frowned, then started to say something else, but Steve called them from the open doors of the assembly room:  
“Loki, Erik, come on!”

“Erik?” Loki lifted an eyebrow.

N’Jadaka shrugged. “Didn’t wanna risk white boy pronunciation.”

Loki turned to go to hide his amusement.

 

The first point at which the assembly derailed, quite quickly after the new round of introductions, was about what to do with Thanos.

Friday and Danvers were only watching, not commenting, same as Scott, Hope and Hela.

The Wakandan group, Shuri, N’Jadaka, Okoye, Nakia and M’Baku wanted to prove their legitimacy, Loki supposed. They advocated for due process.  
Good intentions, but utterly misplaced.

Most of the avengers just wanted to get rid of him, in some safe way, so they were good with the plan to trap him in spacetime.  
Steve, Vision, Romanov, Barton, Banner and Thor all concurred here. Only Tony wanted revenge, and Potts and Rhodes were of course on his side.

Rocket and Nebula wanted to see Thanos suffer.

Since the arguments were based on fears on one side and hatred on the other, the debate was quickly spiralling into a purely emotional fight.

Loki spread his magic slightly to mute their noise level, then said:  
“Thanos cannot die.”

Tony hissed:  
“What did you just do! Don’t do that again!”

“If you behave like children, I will mute you as fits your behavior.”

Thor lifted a hand to stave off further protests.  
“Everybody can die.”

“Not him. Death rejects him. He can suffer, I suppose, but he cannot die. So trying to torture him would achieve nothing in the end but an angrier Titan.”

“What does that mean, Death rejects him.”

Loki met Thor’s eyes and was startled at the desperate need in the live one. “It means he cannot die.” He spread out his hands. “I am unsure at how else to put it.”

Barton asked in a low voice:  
“What would have happened if Thor had cleaved him in half with his axe?”

Loki felt his eyebrows raise at that.  
“I do not know. He might have been incapacitated for a moment, but he wouldn’t have died.”

“So it wouldn’t have solved the problem, in the long run?”  
Barton’s insistence was curious. Even incapacitating Thanos would surely have helped them. Barton’s eyes twitched over to where Thor was still waiting for Loki’s answer, like a man dying of thirst watching a drop form at a dead faucet.

Norns. Did Thor have a chance to do so, and failed? Another quick glance to Barton, who was apparently trying to drill holes into Loki with his gaze alone.

Loki hedged: “It might even have further aggravated the situation.” Who was to know for sure when they were talking would-haves, so this clearly wasn’t a lie.

Thor’s smile looked pathetically grateful.

Nebula snarled:  
“Fine, so we can’t kill him. I’m good with that. But can’t we trap him in something worse than just-”

Hope said:  
“We could shrink him.”

Scott seemed alarmed at that. “Hope!” He explained to them: “Without the tech to keep him safe, shrinking him would squash him to a pulp.

“What, you don’t think he deserves that? It would also make him easier to handle.”

Banner said: “I’m all for miniature Thanos, if that’s an option. Mush is fine, too.”

Steve said:  
“Let’s be clear, this is something we all would like to see: For him to answer for his crimes. But this is not the priority. Our priority is to bring justice to his victims by bringing them back, if we can.”

Rocket asked:  
“And if we can’t?” Several people wanted to answer that.

Steve said, a little louder:  
“First priority, save the dusted! Second priority, bring Thanos to justice, one way or another. First things first, people!”

Danvers asked:  
“I still don’t understand how we can save them at all. Are we turning back time or..?”

Loki let a bit of Frigga’s magic seep out to check on the woman. She clearly wasn’t human, or at least, not only human.  
Kree. Half-Kree? Loki blinked. Huh.

Since several people had wanted to speak up again, Steve gave the floor to Hope, who summarized:  
“We know the dusted aren’t dead, but trapped in the dimension ruled by the soul stone. We want to get them out of there, by using a new gauntlet with all the stones in it. The dwarves at Nidavellir are hopefully forging one as we speak. We need to get to Thanos, get the stones, add them to the new gauntlet, and have someone wield it. Then, we also need to keep Thanos from interfering further. His punishment is shelved until we solve that problem.”

Jane asked:  
“What about the rest of the damage? A lot of people died before and right after the dusting.”

A greater discussion threatened to break out again, but Vision said:  
“Theoretically, the gauntlet should allow to undo all the damage Thanos has wrought. Whoever wields it needs to take care though. Restoring people at their place of death for example would throw a lot of people into open space or open air. And we are talking a number of people and details to take care of that a human mind would be unable to comprehend.”

Tony said:  
“That’s why you will wield it! Is there even a question about that?”

Nebula said calmly:  
“I could, too. I am hardly a person anymore, and numbers don’t scare me.”

Loki glanced at Danvers, but she didn’t speak up.

Steve nodded at Nebula.  
“It’s good to have a backup either way.”

Thor said:  
“I will go to the dwarves and check on the gauntlet. But we need more than just three stones that we now know how to call.”

“We hope we know”, Loki corrected. Then inclined his head towards Nebula. “It was your sister who was killed to get the soul stone, so I would assume, she would heed to your wishes more than those of her father.”

Nebula’s stare was promising violence if he didn’t go on, so he did:  
“That is how the connection between the soul stone and its wielder is built, yes? Love?” He looked at Hela for confirmation. She nodded reluctantly.

Nebula asked in a rough voice:  
“So Gamora is in the soul stone too? Thanos didn’t love her! That wasn’t love! He’s incapable of actual love!”

“Not like the dusted.” Loki tried for a gentle tone. “We won’t be able to pull her out. But yes, she’s probably trapped.”

Nebula closed her eyes.

Vision nodded. “So Nebula focuses on the soul stone, I focus on the mind stone, and wield the gauntlet, with her as backup.”

Loki gave himself a mental shove and said:  
“I suspect Captain Danvers could also act as backup.”

She threw him a sharp glance and inclined her head in confirmation.

Hela threw a wad of paper at Potts, who startled.  
“Oh, me too?”

Hella nodded as if that had been self-evident.

Steve asked:  
“What? How?”

Tony stood up and said:  
“Over my dead body.”

Steve looked up at him in confusion.

Potts said:  
“I was injected with Extremis when we fought Killian.”

Tony made a sweeping gesture:  
“I cured you of that!”

“Not completely. Just of the ill effects.”

Loki was looking at Hela.  
“How do you know that?”

“Oh, I’ve seen it before, when Frigga tried to elevate humanity. They have a lot of untapped potential.” She glanced at Steve and Bruce. “Inherently. But it usually needs an outside push to come to the fore.”

Potts had locked eyes with Tony, and Loki could see her stop herself from touching her belly.  
“I better not.”

Steve was still looking at Hela.  
“So… I could be the backup, too?”

Several protests started up, but it was Nebula who said:  
“It’s obvious you’re not expendable.”

Hela shrugged. “And I don’t think you are quite powerful enough.”

Tony sat down again.  
“What about Wong?”

He earned a lot of bemused looks for that.

“Strange’s colleague, keep up people. He is guarding the Sanctum in New York. Maybe he kind of inherited the time stone?”

Steve frowned:  
“I’m not following.”

Tony wiped that away and said:  
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll contact him, see if he’s not been dusted by any chance, fly him in.”

Nebula said in a low voice:  
“Strange gave up the time stone for you. I think it’s yours.”

Silence reigned for a moment. Tony was visibly flustered, then said:  
“But it can’t hurt to have backup.”

Steve nodded his agreement.  
“Which leaves the power stone.”

Rocket said:  
“That’s the violet one, yeah? The orb? I think that’s mine.”

He was cleaning his claws for a moment, while everyone was looking at him.

Steve asked gently:  
“How’s that?”

Rocket said, his voice smaller than Loki had ever heard it:  
“We all touched it. See, Quill the idiot simply grabbed it, and we already knew it’ll pull him apart - didn’t know about his dad yet, ya know? So we grabbed him, all of us. All the Guardians of the Galaxy. Apart from…”

Rocket swallowed.  
“Anyway. I’m the last of that group of idiots. So I’m the last person alive who touched it before Thanos.”

Steve nodded his thanks at him.

Hope said:  
“For this many people to not get separated in the quantum realm, we’ll need a ship.”

Thor asked:  
“Could you retrofit the Commodore? It’s the vessel my brother arrived in. It carried us safely through a wormhole.”

Loki threw him a glance. He hadn’t told Thor yet that Sif and the Valkyrie had been dusted. However, judging from the cold lines at the corner of his brother’s mouth, he didn’t need to.

Steve stood.  
“So we have a plan. Thor will get the gauntlet, the science squad works on the vessel and the devices for each person. Tony tries to get Wong. The away team assigned to getting the stones from Thanos consists of: Loki, Jane, Vision, Nebula, Rocket, Tony and possibly Wong.  
Assigned to trapping Thanos where he cannot interfere: Hope, Scott, Carol.”

Loki added:  
“And Hela. We’ll need the strongest fighter we have to have any chance against Thanos.”

Hela smiled.

Shuri said:  
“I will come, too.”

The whole Wakandan group started protesting.

“I am the Black Panther”, she said. “Also, I did not ask for permission.”

N’Jadaka cursed: “Then I’ll come to, watch your back.” She nodded graciously.

Okoye looked terrified at that, but as she opened her mouth, Shuri said:  
“That’s all we can risk. The rest of you stays.” She nodded at Nakia and M’Baku as well, who were obviously unhappy, but backed down.

Steve nodded too, then threw Loki a dirty look.  
“As I was about to say, assigned to keep all others save: Me, Natasha, Clint, Thor, Hela. And I thank Shuri and Erik for volunteering.”

Rhodey said:  
“Wait a second, so everyone goes but Bruce, Pepper, Okoye, Nakia, M’Baku and me?”

Natasha said:  
“If we fail, you’ll need to pick up the pieces.”

Steve said in a lower voice:  
“It’s the hardest assignment of all, Rhodey. You get to try and help earth rebuild. You’re on the military side of things, Bruce on science, Pepper on economics, team Wakanda will try and keep up this country as a beacon of hope for the world.”

Tony cursed, but didn’t disagree.

Rhodey looked like he wanted to protest, as did M’Baku, who finally said to Shuri:  
“You can’t be serious.”

“You’d make a good king. With Nakia and Okoye at your shoulders, you will prevail.”

M’Baku snorted. “Yeah. With them at their back, anyone could do it, is that what you’re saying?”

Shuri smiled: “Pretty much.” 

M’Baku frowned, but he was clearly agreeing.

Rhodey whispered:  
“I’m not sure I can do this alone.”

Potts frowned:  
“You won’t be alone.”

Loki saw Romanov and Clint stare at each other. Finally she said: “Fuck. Steve, I’m staying too. Rhodey will need someone on intelligence and diplomacy.”

Rhodey inhaled shakily and smiled gratefully at her. 

Steve nodded slowly. “Okay.” Then he looked around.  
“Any questions?”

Which was the second point in which the assembly derailed, this time for good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments seriously give me LIFE! <3
> 
> Also, come flail with me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/)!


	13. Run towards the trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was it, they were off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that I had a few corrections for the previous chapter, so you might want to re-read that before delving into this one!
> 
> Also note that this chapter ends in a cliffhanger. Next chapter is already written, but needs some more work before I can post it, so coming soon. :)

The science squad was working hard to get all the tech ready. It took time.

Clint could actually help retrofit the Commodore. It didn’t keep him busy for long, just a few hours whenever something new became available to be built in, but at least he could do something.

Thor went to get the gauntlet and came back with two of them, and with a smile: The heart of Nidavellir was burning steadily, and king Eitri was teaching returned dwarves to fill the gaping personnel holes. 

Wong refused to come to Wakanda, let alone the Quantum Realm. He reported that he’d found a man named Wade Wilson, who was crumbling to dust every few hours, then being reassembled out of the ashes. Wong was researching him, and wanted to follow that lead towards a cure for the dusting.  
Nat confirmed that the guy had been on SHIELD’s radar for a while, as a mercenary under the name Deadpool. She said he was simply unkillable, and that Wong’s research would get him nowhere.  
He stayed in New York anyway. However, he did work with Nat, Bruce, Pepper and Rhodey to plan damage control and possible defenses for earth if the worst case should happen.

If none of them would make it back. 

If they failed.

With every passing day, the vibe turned more grim, but also calmer. The frantic initial energy grew into dogged determination to do this right.  
Steve went from team to team, encouraging them all and repeating the notion that they could afford to be thorough, and should prepare as best as they could. No skimming, no chivvying.

Loki used the time to train the stone squad to work together to locate and possibly “call” the stones.  
Clint looked in on that repeatedly from day one, watched the group patterns evolve.

Initially, Tony and Vision were an item, of course. Nebula and Rocket worked very well together from the get-go, too. And Jane and Loki had apparently also found a deeper connection. The fissures in the teamwork were rather less easy to dissect.

They actually needed to sit in a circle, holding hands, and basically meditate, while Loki let his magic connect them into a wizarding circle. Kumbaya, Clint thought.  
However, Loki seemed to know what he was doing, placing each pair to face each other, while everyone was sitting next to someone they might not actively like, but at least didn’t mind.

After the first few runs, Loki congratulated the group to establishing the most basic of connections.  
“You’ve reached the level of Aesir toddlers!” He snarked. “Well done!”

Tony complained of ‘soul itchiness’. Nebula made herself appear so small, she seemed to try to disappear. Meanwhile, Jane was trying to seem larger than she was, Rocket was cracking desperate jokes to cover his dislike of the situation. And when they dispersed for a short coffee break, Vision had a small talk with Nebula, in which the words robot, soul, human, heart and mechanical all featured prominently.  
Nebula was apparently able to help him through his small crisis of Am I A Person, which in turn helped her gain back her confidence.  
In the next round, those two exchanged a smile before holding hands.

Meanwhile, Tony engaged with Rocket’s banter, acting very much as if Rocket’s uneasiness wasn’t noticeable at all, which relaxed that line of furry little shoulders.  
When Loki and Tony had a small strife about if Stark tech could help them here, Nebula and Jane exchanged eyerolls, and Rocket made some cracks about male egoes and also human tech, defusing the situation.

Vision seemed to have developed a rudimentary understanding of Loki’s magic, which further helped abate his personality crisis, and also let him translate between Loki and Tony, at least a little.  
Tony was so obviously driven to the point of desperation, disrupting the peace they needed to base this magic on again and again, that during a later food break, Loki carefully poked that fresh scab. And with Jane’s help, actually got him to open up about Peter Parker, and what the kid had meant to him.

From that point on, Clint couldn’t follow their progress anymore, because it happened while they were all sitting still, eyes closed, then suddenly all exchanging smiles and nods.

After a few days they reported: They’d found the thread to pull on, the direction to lead their chase in.

 

Hope and Clint did a few dry-runs with the retrofitted Commodore, entering the Quantum Realm, and leaving safely again, trying a few jumps to predefined locations with strong beacons placed. They even tried jumping through time, which only worked with Friday’s help - but it worked. It was a sign of their situation that Clint wasn’t even thinking much about that.  
But it gave them another option: If everything else failed, they’d do that: Jump back to when Thanos was just about to win, and try and overpower him.

 

Two huge alien refugee ships hailed earth: Apparently an earth-like planet had turned utterly uninhabitable as a direct result of losing half the population, and the aliens had heard of earth holding its own against the Chitauri, and being friends with late Asgard, so they hoped for human hospitality.  
The ensuing global debate even overshadowed the total collapse of North Korea and large parts of China, which actually threatened to turn earth itself uninhabitable.

One evening, in the makeshift common area of project Save All The Things, Clint heard Nebula say, when she was snacking on something and watching the news on the large screen:  
“Thanos used to say the planets he’d ‘cleansed’ were thriving afterwards. He was lying. I think there was one which kept a civilization running, but they had been highly evolved and in tune with their world to begin with. The other planets just… withered away. Or-” She made a gesture and sound effect to mimic an explosion.

On screen, a panel of scientists was explaining what the huge nuclear cloud that was currently moving towards India actually meant, and hypothesized why the world had lost contact with South Korea for days now.  
One elderly white panelist asked if the aliens would mind radiation, because maybe they could settle in ex-North Korea?

Clint knew that Japan was being evacuated completely. But he also knew from Nat that Pakistan was running propaganda programs declaring the whole dusting an attack from the West, and the nuclear cloud another such attack. Batshit crazy news panels in US media weren’t much better.  
Clint rather thought earth would run out of time long before any evac attempts would help save anyone anywhere.

Soon after that evening, Steve changed his tune to: “We’re not going for style, people. It doesn’t have to work perfectly, it just has to work.”

The morning the Commodore was scheduled to start the mission, Clint called Laura.  
He told her that he couldn’t tell her much, then they just talked about pretty much nothing. She was an agent herself, and smart about such things. In the end, she didn’t say Goodbye but Good Luck.

Nat came to him for a quick hug, and he mumbled into her hair: “It’s nice at the farm. If you ever need a break or so.”  
She turned around and walked away without responding to that, but he knew she’d help Laura out.  
If.

 

Clint was piloting, Hope next to him. Steve was sitting behind him, Hela behind Hope.  
Loki was having the stone squad circle sit in the room with the table, with Vision and Nebula connected to the ship through Friday.  
The rest of the team was standing ready in the main bay of the ship.

Everyone was wearing Stark Tech nano-suits and Pym Tech wrist gadgets.  
This was it, they were off.

Hope initiated the shrinking, and Friday calmly declared all systems running inside optimal parameters. 

Clint could never get used to this, to see the basis of reality laid out like this. They could actually see the molecules, atoms, strings, and finally, the Quantum Realm, the very fabric onto which their world, their lives was loosely stitched.

Friday said: “Target acquired” and launched the reverse gear.  
Time and space expanded again, and soon the Commodore was cruising through an atmosphere.  
Friday rattled off sensory input, and Clint mentally translated: This was not earth. They’d be able to breathe, and would neither melt not freeze. The landscape below them looked lovely, actually.  
“Distance to target: Five hundred miles and counting down. ETA two minutes.”

Hela leaned forward and frowned:  
“This is not our universe.”

Hope guessed: “Pocket universe of his own making?” At Clint’s glance she shrugged: “It’s where I would have gone in his place.”

Steve asked: “Problem?”

Hela said: “I don’t think so. But if he created this, we better assume nothing.”

Steve nodded: “It’s his playground. Understood.” He relayed that to the other parts of the ship.

Friday created a blip on their screen, to show them the location impression she derived from Loki’s circle of freshmen magicians.

“Right”, Clint said and turned the nose down to try and be less noticeable. They had SHIELD retro-reflective paneling, but still. Some classic sneaking couldn’t hurt.

Steve told the team to get ready for their drop, then Clint put them into a wide circle, spiraling closer to the target. There was a small building at the apex of a hill, overlooking the landscape. A merry little trail of smoke from a chimney.

“He’s not hiding at all”, Steve observed. He checked the straps of his own parachute, then told Clint: “Drop us directly on top of him.”

Hela and Hope went with Steve, out of the cockpit, to join the drop team. Clint turned the Commodore’s nose towards the building, opened one side of the bay, and Steve said in his earpiece:  
“Stay sharp, everyone! Go go GO!”

  
  


The fight wasn’t going well from the beginning, that much was clear. N’Jadaka and Scott were gone before Clint had even turned around the Commodore, Shuri and Rocket were falling before he even reached the open hatch.  
He had Friday fly rounds over the battlefield, shooting arrow after arrow at Thanos, all of them moving around him like sparrows around a tree.

Within moments, Jane was engulfed in a red miasma, her inhuman shriek reaching even him, this high up. 

A bright blue streak flew at Loki, a golden one towards Vision, and Thor, Steve and Carol rushed Thanos, but violet power tore at them, pushed them back brutally.  
Something was wrong with Vision, but he wrangled the mind stone into his gauntlet, when Loki had just thrown the tesseract at Nebula, and she managed to pull it into her gauntlet. Clint started cursing.

Thor didn’t get back up again, vomiting blood, and Carol wasn’t moving at all. Tony was shooting at Thanos, and Steve called for Hope to throw the shrink disk.  
Hela was finally charging as well, but Tony was already down, Steve was stumbling, and Hope threw the disk, and with a huge flash of light, expanding outwards, then collapsing into itself, they were gone.

All of them.

Clint lowered his bow and stared at the smoldering battlefield. The afterimage of the bright flash burned into his retinas was making it hard to see anything, but they were just… gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... yeah. Don't worry, I promise a happy end! :D


	14. What heroes do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki took a shaky breath and turned around.

Loki caught his fall with both hands hitting the floor hard, then he stared at the polished marble between his blue hands.  
Behind him, someone squeaked:  
“Your majesty, are you alright?”

He slowly stood up, looking around.

Asgard. Clearly, the Golden City. And his own quarters.  
As if pulled by an outside force, he wandered over to the balcony and stared down at the bustling streets. Colorful bunting adorned the buildings, and even from up here he could see the abundant floral decorations.

His head was swimming a little, and his heart was hammering.

Seconds ago, Hope had thrown the shrinking disk, a last defense, a final gasp of defiance against Thanos.   
Before that, he’d seen Jane be consumed by the aether, barely human, shrieking like a demon. The mind stone had fought back against Vision’s call, bringing him to his knees, so Nebula had tried to use her gauntlet. Loki had thrown her the tesseract, just as Vision had finally wrangled the mind stone into his own gauntlet.

And how had they not foreseen that: Two gauntlets on the field risked dividing the stones.

Rocket and Shuri had gone down far too quickly, right at the beginning, and Thor, Steve and Carol had barely been able to hold the Titan at bay. The very ground they stood on had been working against them.

N’Jadaka and Scott hadn’t even made it to the fight, Thanos picked them from the sky already.

And Hela... Hela had held back. Steve had screamed for Hope to shrink him, do it! And then Thanos had put his hand on the mangled rest of his gauntlet, right over-

Behind Loki, the doors opened and closed, and the servant said to the newcomer:  
“Your majesty, the prince had a fall just now.”

Frigga said:  
“Well clearly you went overboard with this design. That trail is far too long. No wonder you tripped.”

Loki took a shaky breath and turned around.

Frigga was smiling, amused and exasperated, but her face fell when she saw his. She waved the servant away and came closer.  
“Darling, what is wrong? Don’t tell me you have second thoughts?”

“Mother”, he croaked.

Her hands went to his high collar, straightening it unnecessarily.  
“Sweetheart, really. You do realize that I know what the two of you have been doing for years and years, yes? This is really just making it official.”

Loki could feel a cold tear slowly inch over his cheek.  
“Mother”, he whispered.

Frigga frowned and pulled him down into a careful hug.  
Way down. He was taller than usual. He looked at his blue arms closing around her shoulders and took another shaky breath, willing away his Jotnar form. Looking Aesir had been natural before, hadn’t it?

Frigga snickered gently.  
“Now now, you’re just making the trail issue worse if you shrink yourself like this.”

She pushed him away, but just to hold both his shoulders in her hands and search his face.  
“Is it this? Do you still fear their judgement?” She shook him gently. “Wasn’t it you who brought a new era of prosperity to Jotunheim? Where is your head, hmm?”

Loki tried getting air into his lungs without this persistent shakiness, but it didn’t work. His gaze flickered over the room, took in the cloak laid out, the crown-like helmet with two horns - different from the one he’d favored in his youth, but still clearly his.  
The bed, the books, the huge mirror and even bigger bouquets of flowers, fitting the city’s decorations.

Frigga gently cupped his cheek.  
“Talk to me, darling.” She wasn’t smiling anymore. “What could possibly make you look like this on your wedding day.”

He startled, although a large part of him wasn’t surprised at all.

Thor had vomited blood, on his knees before the Titan, who had just pushed some violet power right through his middle. He’d been dying, hadn’t he, just before Hope threw-

“Loki!” Frigga said sharply.

“Mother, I… I…”

“Sit down for a moment.” She pulled him towards the settee. “Isn’t this what you always wanted, for your bond with your brother to be officially recognized?”

He sat down next to her, another tear slowly drawing down. She held both his hands, and he knew his own were shaking. Her’s were soft and cool and… there.

Frigga launched into a gentle tale of her own parents being siblings, and how none of the Aesir were even much surprised, that there was nothing to worry about, that he could very well wear his Jotnar blue skin - that he could be proud of who he’d become.

Loki stared at her hands in his, more tears falling soundlessly.

Isn’t this what you always wanted?

The flowers were markedly orange, just as all the gold surrounding them was tinged towards that area of the spectrum.

The gauntlet had been a mangled mess surrounding Thanos’ equally mangled hand - reminiscent of Eitri’s metal mittens, actually. 

The aether had reacted first, practically melting out of the gauntlet, then jumping Jane.

The tesseract had to free itself from the metal casing that trapped it, but, alas, it was the space stone after all, so it came.

And the mind stone had, by pure chance, been the least encased by the mangled metal, so it had moved from it, even though it then fought back against Vision.

But the soul stone had still shone brightly, and hadn’t budged when Nebula called for it, at all.

Frigga sighed.  
“You’re not even listening. Can’t you just tell me what bothers you so, my sweet?”

Loki shook his head slightly.

“Shall I have your sister fetched?”

Loki looked up. “My sister”, he croaked.

“Yes”, Frigga smiled, amused in spite of her clear worry for his state of mind. “Hela, goddess of the dead. Don’t tell me it is that! You are both just as much my children as Thor is, and that will never change!”

“Death”, Loki corrected with a whisper. “Goddess of death.”

“Oh stop it already. I don’t know why this is a sore point for her, but you should really stop riling her up like this. Your sister takes good care of the souls of the unworthy, and they do follow her lead into the light, so that they might regain their right to Valhalla.”

“Purgatory”, Loki mumbled, then shook his head slightly. “Is that what Hel is?”

“If you’d like to call it that..?” Frigga frowned. “Seriously, Loki, what is this about?”

“What am I the god of?” he asked, his heart back to hammering.

“Magic, fun and stories!” Frigga seemed ready to launch into a pep talk, but Loki stood up.

“Trickery, mischief and lies.”

“Oh Loki, no, no.”

“I would actually like to see my sister, if you would be so kind? And a moment alone, please.”  
Frigga seemed unnerved, but left, her voice calling out for someone to fetch Hela.

His mother was dead. So she couldn’t be real. But Hela just might be, trapped here, with him.

Loki sat down again for a moment while he was waiting, but then stood up and went over to the mirror. He let the Aesir form dissolve into tall, Jotun blue again, which made his outfit fit him again.

The sleeveless long tunic with the rather ridiculous tail was black and red and gold. Black for him, red for Thor, gold for Asgard. His hair was longer than he’d ever managed to grow it out, falling down over his shoulder blades. Instead of being held back by grease, the sides above his ears were braided, just like-

Just like the hair of the shadowy ex-Valkyrie that had collected him from where Thor’s shoulders had been shaking, leaning over his fallen corpse.

Because he died. He’d made a deal with Death. And they’d been fighting Thanos. He was currently trapped inside of the soul stone, he was nearly completely sure. But he had to remind himself of that, fiercely. His mind clearly wanted to forget all of this.

Behind him, Hela strode into the room, cocked a hip and put one hand on it, then looked him over.

“I can see the trail is slightly too long, but please tell me you didn’t have mother pull me from my work right before your oh so grand day, just because you needed fashion advice.”

She looked… softer. Maybe it was the makeup, much less harsh than he remembered, or the open hair with a large silver clasp at one side. Or the flowing green dress, very unfit for fighting in.

“As if I’d ever need fashion advice from you”, he said without thinking, then blinked. 

She snickered. “True. And I have always denied any responsibility for the disaster that is your wardrobe. As if I’d want to be associated with…” she gestured at his whole form: “That.”

He smiled.

With a small jerk of her chin, she threw her hair back a bit, then came to his side, looking at their mirror image.

“Mother said you cried”, she said, and her voice was low, and careful, and no. She wasn’t real either.

He nodded and tried to say: ‘I don’t know why’, but no words came forth. So lying was still out then.  
He closed his mouth again.

“Come now. Thor loves you, Asgard loves you, Jotunheim grudgingly respects you, what more do you want?”

“Nothing”, he whispered.

She frowned slightly. “Mother also said you went Aesir in looks for a moment. Is it that? Can’t you decide? That’s what you get for fluctuating so much, little brother.”

“Mother”, he whispered. “Brother.”

“Because if so, that’s easy. Go blue, but stay small. Thor likes being taller than you.” She rolled her eyes. “In the series of ‘Things I Wish I Didn’t Know’ we brought to you today: Details from my brothers’ sex lives.”

Loki blinked slowly. He felt himself turn cooler again, watched his hands turn blue.  
Then he said:  
“Mother would have panicked if I’d asked her to fetch Thor.” He glanced at Hela, who lifted both eyebrows. 

She put a hand on his shoulder for a moment and said: “I can do that.” She frowned as if worried, then shook her head slightly and snarled: “But know this: If you plan to ruin today’s feast, I will feed you to Fenrir!”

 

Thor’s hair was long as well, and his smile was wide, and only a little shaky.  
“Loki. My love”, he said and with a few long strides he was right there, pulling Loki into a tight hug, on hand on his neck.

Loki closed his eyes, his mind flashing back wildly, to pain and confusion and a world out of balance, ruled by chaos.  
You come back home, brother. Listen to me. Loki.

“I’m here”, he said in a low voice.

Thor pulled him back, his grip on Loki’s neck still strong. He cocked his head and said with a careful grin:  
“Hela said you were having second thoughts.”

“I assume she added something about me being the perfect neurotic bride.”

“No”, Thor lied, pursing his lips. His blue eyes were sparkling, and carried a guilelessness that had enraged Loki in the past, way beyond reason.

Loki smiled slightly. “I didn’t tell her what I wanted you here for.”

Thor’s eyes jumped from Loki’s hair to his mouth to the top of his chest, exposed by the open high collar.  
“This is an unusual sight”, he said slowly. “I do not prefer either, but I do like this, too.”

Heat in his gaze, and Loki’s heart leapt.

There was no way this was the real Thor. 

And he’d died. He’d made a deal with Death. He needed to keep it. To do so, he needed to get out of this perfect little world that the soul stone had conjured up for him.

But he could have this, couldn’t he, just for a moment? Indulge, before he’d be condemned to never see his brother again?

“I love you”, he whispered, and he could feel tears accumulating again.

Thor’s frown was slightly worried, as his thumb caressed his cheek, wiping a tear away.

“I love you too. Never doubt that, brother.”

Loki laughed, a strange, broken sound.  
His shaking hands were already grabbing for Thor’s collar and pulling him into a kiss.  
Thor smiled against his lips, then pulled him closer.

Loki knew to expect - and hide - his own desperation, but Thor seemed rather hungry as well, the kiss quickly deteriorating into wet and filthy territory.

Thor was crowding him so much that Loki as slowly moved backwards, until his back hit a wall.  
Thor’s hard body was pressed against his full-length, and both of them groaned.

Loki laughed humorlessly, then said:  
“Norns, this is the perfect trap.”

Thor, still breathing heavily, leaned backwards a little and asked:  
“What do you mean.”

“I wish we could stay like this forever”, Loki croaked. But he’d died. He had a deal with Death. He needed to keep it. For Thor.  
“But I think we’ll miss our own wedding.”

Thor laughed. Loki smiled and said:  
“You better leave.” He wanted to add ‘I will see you soon’, but no lie wanted to come out. He would never see Thor again, and this wasn’t his real brother anyway.

With a last kiss, Thor nodded, went to leave, then hesitated.  
“Listen… if you actually do have second thoughts… this is for you just as much as it is for me, do you understand? If you want to stop the theatre of it all, we can do that, anytime, alright?”

The earnest love in his eyes was a little too much, but the consideration was very much how Thor had learned to be in the end, wasn’t it.

Loki smiled back and nodded, and he couldn’t say anything to that. With a slight frown, Thor nodded again.

The moment the door closed behind him, Loki pulled his sharpest knife from empty air, and drove it into his own heart with a smooth move.

The pain was a distant thing, barely noticeable. 

He’d made a deal, for Thor. He needed to keep it.

His knees gave out and he slid down the wall, his breath coming in wet gasps only. He’d meant to hit his heart, and maybe he had, but he could actually feel his lung filling with blood. It was exquisitely uncomfortable.

At the doorway, Thor roared like an injured bear and frantically slid to his knees in front of him, pawing his wound. When had he come back?

Loki stared at Thor’s face and wondered if he deserved seeing this again. He knew he’d committed crimes in his life, but even if he’d been successful in eradicating the whole of the ice giants, this seemed excessive.

“NOOO”, Thor wailed. He pulled out the little knife, pressed a hand on the blood gushing out of the small but deep wound. “No, please I can’t do this again, please, no…”

Loki blinked. Again? Had he pranked Thor in this little world? Had they ever fought on the rainbow bridge here, too? Had they ever fought elves?

“Norns please”, Thor’s voice lost its strength and slowly degenerated into a helpless rough whisper. “Whatever I’ve done to displease you, I surely don’t deserve this punishment, surely this is too cruel. I can’t lose him again, please…”

The edges of Loki’s view turned dark, lined with orange light.

“Gods, no, please”, Thor whispered at the border of Loki’s consciousness. “Why would he even do this, this doesn’t even makes sense, Gods, no, he can’t have hated me the whole time, please… I’d rather have him back hating me than this…”

Darkness engulfed Loki, and finally, true pain echoed through his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, a happy end is coming, I PROMISE :D


	15. Play dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First things first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to correct the chapter count, this one of them has grown far to long. :) I don't think you'll mind, right..? :D

Clint blinked against the afterimage of the flash, and kept still, while Friday flew the Commodore in one low round after another.

“...Friday?”

“...I cannot sense anybody else but you in a ten mile radius”, she said. Her voice was modulated low, as if she, too, was in shock.  
“However, the stones and the gauntlets are all down there.”

She flew him closer without any prompting, bringing the Commodore down in the brand new clearing the fight had created around the hut. Clint slowly walked a few steps.

His knees wanted to give out as he realized the puddle where Thor had last been in was blood.  
He could see Stormbreaker lying next to it, and a little further, Nebula’s gauntlet, with the gleaming space stone in it. 

Where Thanos had last been standing, a handful of pink goo was undulating like an oversized amoeba. Jesus fucking Christ, was that what Scott and Hope had meant with the side effects of shrinking without a suit?  
The pink goo was stretching out slightly, then jerking to the other side.

Clint took a deep breath, then took another look around, his eyes burning. 

First things first.  
Clint turned on his heel and jogged back to the Commodore, to fetch the container Hope had devised to keep a shrunk Thanos in, if it should come to that.

Once he stood in front of the goo again, a hysterical giggle threatened to overcome him as he realized that no power in the multiverse would get him to touch that.

He looked around frantically, then took up Steve’s Wakandan shield and scooped the ex-Titan into the container. Some of the dirt came with it, but better that, than missing any of the slime. He closed the container and fell to his knees, concentrating on breathing.

In, out. In, out.

Then he heaved himself up, deposited the container on the edge of the open ship’s hatch, and carefully collected the gauntlets. 

The deformed one had a green, a violet, and an orange glowing stone peeking through the mangled metal.  
Nebula’s gauntlet had the blue stone. Vision’s, further away, the yellow one.

Close by the treeline, a red shadow was creeping towards Clint. Clint’s heart started hammering as he remembered Jane’s scream. He quickly went back to the other two gauntlets, then stared at the one in his hand versus the two on the floor. There was no use trying to use Thanos’ gauntlet. But maybe the tesseract would help him.

He turned around, and by now, the aether had moved very close, nearly touching him. He was out of options.

He put on Nebula’s gauntlet, and he could feel the tesseract tearing at him immediately, as if the space stone was feeling him out. He mentally apologized and tried to concentrate on one thought alone:  
Please don’t let the aether get me.

Clint’s knees gave out as he held the gauntlet towards the searching red miasma, fist closed.

“Please”, he croaked. Sharp blue light spread towards the aether, guiding it towards an open slot in the gauntlet.  
Clint’s hand hurt like teeth that had been clenched hard for hours on end, like exposed nerves subjected to heat or cold. Clint was trying not to vomit from the roiling pain and general disorientation.  
He clawed at the gauntlet, and with all the breath he had left, and all the frantic energy powered purely by adrenaline and the sure knowledge that this would kill him any second, he pulled the gauntlet off and fell back onto his back.

His whole arm felt like it had been vibrating for days. It was too strange to register as pain, but he could already feel a deep ache looming inside of the tingle.

The sky above him was surreally blue, with pretty little wisps of clouds here and there. In the distance, birds were getting back to singing after the battle-induced silence.

They had failed. 

Clint took a deep breath, and then there was no holding back the sobs breaking free through the crumbling numbness. He distantly thought that he sounded like a child crying for its mother, but he didn’t care. Nobody here to hear him anyway. And Friday would never judge.

When the sobs finally receded, the headache that he was left with was the strongest sensation, even worse than the ache in his arm.  
With a queer mixture of guilt and relief he thought: Nat is still back home. Laura is waiting for both of us.  
He closed his eyes and resigned himself to the slow process of grief.  
He thought of Cooper and Lila. His kids, dammit, they’d been his. But then he decided against reciting all of the people he now had to face as being lost. His stiff limbs made it hard to get up, but he had weapons and gauntlets to collect, and a shrunk Titan to trap between time and space.

The last weapons he collected were Hela’s scythe, and Thor’s axe, both incredibly heavy. He was just laying down the scythe again, deciding to rather walk to the ship twice than try and carry them both, when above the old gauntlet, through a veil of orange light, Loki stumbled to his knees, heaving.

Clint froze and stared.

Loki was crying and cursing, his fingers clawing at the ground. When he looked up, his green eyes looked feverish.  
He snarled at Clint: “Give me that!”

Clint leaned the axe forward for him to grasp and rasped:  
“Loki…”

Loki took the axe, and with a huge swing that Clint couldn’t even have dreamed of pulling off, he swung it at Thanos’ gauntlet, crushing it into shards of metal, the stones practically jumping out into different directions. Then he swung it at Vision’s gauntlet, his scream of effort echoing, and ending in something like a stifled cry.

When he let Thor’s axe fall, the thrum of its impact on the ground vibrated through the soles of Clint’s feet, and through the lower spectrum of his hearing aids’ capabilities.

Then Loki put on Nebula’s gauntlet and started to collect the stones. Clint slowly stepped next to him.

Loki pointed at the aether, slotted in next to the tesseract.  
“Well done”, he said tiredly.

“... thanks.” Clint still stared at him. “How did you…?”

Loki bared his teeth - maybe he’d meant to smile, it was hard to tell.  
“If you ever meet Gamora, punch her teeth out for me, will you?”

Clint swallowed and frowned.

“Also, when you see my brother, tell him N’Jadaka threatened the Asgardians, should they try and settle on earth.”

“The… Asgardians…” Had Loki forgotten they had all died? Had he traveled through time, or maybe, through dimensions? Had he not noticed that they’d… failed?  
Did he have a new plan?

Loki kneeled over the soul stone, carefully flexing the gauntlet open and closed. With a voice low enough that Clint’s aids had trouble hearing that, he said:  
“If Hela wants you to get her to New York… or wants you to get someone from New York to her, do that, will you? Friday, delete this bit, please.”

Clint’s head jerked towards the Commodore, then back to Loki. This didn’t feel right at all.

Loki took a deep breath and moved the back of the gauntlet closer to the soul stone, which clinked into place. It made the gauntlet hum and Loki lose some color and some strength of voice as he continued, louder again:  
“When any of you see me next… don’t try and fight me.”

He fell to his knees, his whole arm shaking with the effort to keep the fully powered gauntlet on.  
Clint took a step back.

Oh God, what did the trickster plan. Should Clint have tried to keep him from getting it?

Loki looked up at him, and his eyes were rimmed red as if he’d been the one crying for the last few hours. He smiled.  
“Don’t try to fight me, if you ever see me again, for there is no power in the multiverse greater than her.”

“Her?” Clint asked through the lump in his throat.

Loki looked down again, at the shaking gauntlet, then he took another deep breath.  
“Tell him I’m sorry, will you? And that… in there… I still couldn’t lie.”

Then he snapped his fingers.

 

When Clint came to, Tony was kneeling next to him, helmet open.  
“Oh thank God”, he said, then smiled. “Welcome back.”

Clint blinked, then took his offered hand to get up.

The hut was still rubble, the Commodore still parked, no Loki, no Thanos, but all the rest of the away team was there, including Shuri and Scott. Steve had both hands up and tried to get order into the multitude of half-coordinated conversations.

“Guys, guys! We’re missing all of the stones and gauntlets, and we’re missing Loki! That has to take priority right now!”

Clint said:  
“He did it. He assembled a new gauntlet and snapped his fingers.”

Everybody turned to him.

Steve asked carefully:  
“When was that?”

“After you all disappeared. No wait.” Clint massaged the area under his left eyebrow, a massive headache bloomed there.  
“Scott and Erik were shot out of the air...”

Scott put a hand on his chest and gulped. N’Jadaka crossed his arms and widened his stance.

“Then Rocket and Shuri died...”

Steve nodded: “I’m with you so far, I remember that.”

Several other nods, while Rocket sat down, staring forward, and Shuri scoffed.

“Then Jane…” 

She wiped her hands over her face and said: “I remember.”

“Hope shrunk Thanos, but he’d already…”

Hope turned to where Thanos had been standing. “It worked?”

“I put him in the container.”

Tony put a hand behind Clint’s back, steadying him. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been swaying.

Vision said in a low voice:  
“We didn’t die, did we. We went into the soul stone dimension.”

Tony said: “Aah, that explains so much…”

Nebula was snarling:  
“And Loki?”

“Loki came back, after some time. And he…”

Friday said from the ship: “I have a recording of what transpired, if there is any need for further investigation at a later date. However, I propose moving Thanos to the planned final position immediately. There is some activity in the container.”

That spurred them into action.

Thor and Hela took up their weapons. Tony helped Clint back to the ship. Thor fell into step at his other side and looked at him. Thor looked… ashen.

Clint nodded slightly.  
“He said not to fight him when we see him next, ‘for there is no power in the multiverse greater than her’.”

Thor’s jaw was working, and his face contorted in a mixture of grief and fury.

“Her?” Tony asked.

Hela huffed a breath.  
“Death.”

There was a dark storm brewing behind Thor’s blue eye. Clint looked away and decided to tell him the rest later.

 

Depositing Thanos was anticlimactically easy. Hope insisted on “folding him in”, whatever that meant, which took some time to accomplish. But then Friday expanded time and space again without any issue. They didn’t end up exactly where they had started - just as planned, since there had been the risk of colliding with something.

So there was a slow aerial approach to Wakanda, just as if they were on board of any common little plane.

Clint wasn’t piloting. His left arm was shaking too badly, and it felt like his soul was shaking inside of him too, like his brain was rattling around in his skull, untethered.

Carol was the next most competent pilot, so she and Hope flew them in.

The doors between cockpit, hangar and meeting room were all open, and a few muted conversations were going on here and there.  
N’Jadaka and Shuri were comparing their experience in the afterlife, each others and also the ones they’d just had to the ones when they’d “eaten the flower”.

For Clint’s taste, there was far too much death to go around these days.

Vision and Jane were talking about ‘their’ stones fighting back, and what that meant for Vision especially.

Clint was however watching mainly Thor, who was sitting hunched over, staring at the axe in his hands. Rocket was right next to him, glancing up to his face now and again.  
After a while, Thor’s hand landed between Rocket’s ears.

Steve was trying to get out of Hela where Loki might have disappeared to, but Hela was not cooperating, instead obviously trying to break through Steve’s patience and make him snap.

Friday said over the comms:  
“Mr. Stark, you have three incoming calls: Miss Potts, Mr. Hogan, and Mr. Parker.”

Tony shared a quick, happy glance with Clint and Steve, then grinned:  
“Give me Pepper first please”, then his helmet snapped shut, providing him some privacy for that conversation.

Carol in the cockpit asked Wakanda for permission to land. Friday played their answer over the speakers: it was Okoye’s voice, tinged with pleasure.  
“Permission granted. Please let her majesty the queen know that her brother told her to expect a whooping.”  
In the background, T’Challa’s indignant protest was audible:  
“What?! No, I said-”

Audio cut off, then Friday reported:  
“A first analysis of the news feeds indicates a full restoration of all the dusted, and all casualties resulting from the aftermath. Korea, China and Japan report full restoration of destroyed infrastructure. Colonel Fury expects a full debriefing at the first opportunity.”

Jane put her face in her hands and laughed.

Steve was standing, his head tilted back, and a halting smile spread over his face.  
“Bucky? Sam? Wanda? What about-”

Carol called back from the cockpit:  
“Guys, there’s a LOT of people down there… and a huge spaceship.”

Friday added:  
“It is the Asgardian ark, the ‘Statesman’. Several people have requested an audience with Thor as soon as possible.”

Thor’s head hung even lower as he whispered:  
“Oh brother…”

Clint took out his phone and once it had connected to the Wakanda net, he called Laura.  
She answered at the first ring, laughing already. In the background, Lila and Cooper were talking over each other, babbling about unicorns and fighter jets, magical swords and evil wizards.  
Clint smiled:  
“Hey.”

Laura was still laughing:  
“Hey you! You were all that was missing now! Are you coming home soon?”

Clint looked around at everyone standing up while they were already landing.  
“Not very soon I suspect”, he said. “We have a few things to take care of.”

Then he smiled again. His cheeks felt sore like he hadn’t smile in years.

Laura shushed the kids and said warmly:  
“But you’re coming home.”

“Yes”, he said. “We will.”

There was a beat of silence, then a happy sigh from Laura.  
“Be careful”, she said. “Don’t fuck anything up now!”

“Yeah”, he agreed. “Won’t. Love you.”

“Love you too.” In the background, Cooper was asking if Dad would come home soon, and Lila asked if he’d gotten a magical sword too, and what about the dragons.  
But Laura was already disconnecting.

 

Apparently everybody who’d been off-world at the time of the dusting had been restored on the small helicopter airfield of the palace in Wakanda, as had the whole of the Asgardian ark and its residents.

Peter Parker tackled Tony on sight. Tony went to his knees, clinging to the kid.

Two formidable looking warrior women started the hug fest for Thor, who was quickly pulled into the throngs of Asgardians, who’d apparently collected some vague memories of being in Valhalla.

Wanda and Vision were standing brow to brow in a low, gentle conversation, and Rocket’s friends were especially colorful, pulling Nebula in with them.

Steve clung to Bucky, while Sam patted his back. Nat and Clint stood close by, ready to jump back into action. But neither of their World War II veterans moved, for a long time.  
Only when Sam sighed and pulled his hand back did they disentangle, and Steve pulled him into the tight hug as well.

Nat and Bucky exchanged a quick one as well, but then Nebula came over, followed by the motley crew of aliens surrounding Rocket.

“Quill is missing.”

Steve frowned. “Who’s that?”

A large man with a purple pattern on his skin said:  
“Our co-pilot.”

A girl with huge dark eyes and, uh, antenna, asked:  
“Isn’t he the captain?”

The purple man said:  
“He thinks so.”

Rocket snorted.  
“Thing is, Gamora we expected, right? ‘Cause she’s, uh, connected to the soul stone or whatever. But Quill?”

Nebula said:  
“He was fighting with us on Titan.”

Tony and a man in a ridiculous red cape came over. That guy said:  
“He failed to keep his temper in check and sabotaged Tony’s efforts to get the gauntlet off.” He lifted a hand. “But in his defense, that would have led to further catastrophe. I checked.”  
He extended the hand towards Steve.

“Dr. Stephen Strange. Captain Rogers, we haven’t met in this timeline yet.”

“Ah, no. Pleasure to meet you.” Steve threw Tony a questioning glance.

Tony said:  
“He mastered the time stone, and went through fourteen million variations of the future before he just... handed it to Thanos.”

Strange chuckled. “My apologies, that must have seemed strange to you.”

Tony crossed his arms and said: “Yah, no kidding!”

Strange smiled. “In my defense, it is very hard to sort through variations of the future at all with a literal god of chaos in the mixture. One ends up at least slightly disoriented. Where is he, by the way?”

“Loki?” Steve asked. “We don’t know.”

Strange frowned. “Oh. And the gauntlet?”

Embarrassed silence.

“Do you mean to tell me that the god of mischief made away with the Infinity Gauntlet?!”

Rocket asked:  
“Not sure why that part would surprise anyone. But we’re still missing someone else, hello?”

Hela and Thor were joining them, Thor asked:  
“Who else is missing?”

Strange said: “Peter Quill, leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy.”

The purple-ish man mumbled: “He thinks.”

Strange extended a hand to Thor and greeted him like an old friend. “My condolences”, he said somberly. Thor cleared an angry frown from his face and nodded graciously.

Nebula asked Hela:  
“If Gamora is steering the soul stone, and Quill was trapped in there as well, could she simply have kept him there?”

Hela shrugged slightly, then nodded. “Possibly.”

The girl with the antenna gasped: “Oh that makes sense!”

Clint shared a glance with Natasha.  
He was really getting tired of the mumbo jumbo.

She jerked her head for him to come with, gesturing the short-hand for a food break, and they walked side by side to the entrance, where N’Jadaka, Shuri and T’Challa were having a low but furious discussion.

Nat sighed: “Great. Three Black Panthers.”

Clint snickered: “Why not. We wouldn’t want things to get boring, right?”  
He put an arm around her shoulders, and she bumped into him before slinging an arm around his back.

“You did it”, she whispered, as if she still couldn’t believe it.

“Loki did it”, Clint said, and felt his smile die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep the faith people, stay strong, Happy End still guaranteed, and this was NOT it! :)


	16. Walk through the shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stars moved, complete silence reigned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corrected the chapter count once again, sorryyyy! :D  
> I keep coming up with stuff I wanna put in as well...

There were glimpses of light, here and there, frantic thoughts seeping through his mental fingers, and he was utterly unable to hold on to any of them. But mostly, there was cool darkness.

Loki could tell that his awareness had… gaps. One moment he was pondering that even if it had been the actual, real Thor in his little soul stone paradise, Thor might not remember that. Loki himself had only seen through the illusion because, well, that was his forte, wasn’t it.  
Lies.

But before he could follow that thought to form an opinion about how that would factor into Thor’s anger or possibly, grief, there were flashes of screams and white hot fire, and then he was walking in slow, measured steps, over a huge battlefield, with one Valkyrie behind each shoulder, and he swung a scythe, felling dozens of small, pinkish people who had just died of some kind of chemical warfare in some war on some distant world.

He turned to look for the setting sun - pink in hue as well - and his thoughts were slow like molasses, even his blink felt like it was set to slow-motion, and then he was pulled back by the darkness at his neck, like an unruly puppy.

From somewhere, the knowledge seeped through his mind to NEVER LINGER.

Then there was cool darkness again, and the distant echo of pain and regret, why, why had he not simply stayed there, in the orange tinged perfection.   
No, he knew why.  
He hadn’t been able to lie there as well, so the power of Death was permeating the soul stone dimension as well. There had been no getting out of the deal. There was no power in the multiverse greater than her.  
After all, killing himself had freed him.

He fell forward through darkness, and slowly rolled his shoulders back as what looked like a small mountain heaved upwards a little in front of him, then sunk into itself again.  
The flicker of a memory - hadn’t he met one of the rock people at some point in his life - but it was already gone, and forgotten.

With a slow, sure move, Loki swung his scythe, and its power expanded through the whole of the mountain. With a soft sigh, the rock died, and at Loki’s ear there was new knowledge to COLLECT THE SOUL.

Right, no Valkyries this time. He extended his free hand, and wisps of light flew into it, converging into a small blue-ish flame.  
With a twist of his wrist, he folded the flame into the shadow of Death, and his job was done. Since he was not to linger, he turned around and weaved himself back between the fabric of the universe too.

He asked himself how he had known that suicide would free him from the soul stone dimension, andthen had to face the truth that he simply… hadn’t. Not for sure. Hypothesis, like the basis of all his actions since he’d met Thanos, since the Titan had plucked him out of open space.  
Play every angle of a situation and move quickly, that was always his strategy. There was even some hope left now, wasn’t there, he always, always had a plan, and a failsafe, even if right now, there was nothing left he could do.   
The seed was sown. The rest was up to the Fates.

So what did it matter anyway.  
He was gone for good this time, in the services of Death for all eternity, never to see him again. What did it matter what Thor thought of him now.  
But, oh it was the only thing left in the multiverse that mattered at all.

Another pull to the side, then he found himself close by a white sun, and a being made of wings and eyes and sadness was sinking quickly into its gravity well, praying for Death to take it.

I HEAR YOU, was heard ringing through the screaming eruptions of sun plasma. Loki could feel the immense relief of the being, then swung his scythe. 

Its soul was hard to carry, even for a moment.  
Was there a flicker of pride running through him still? No Valkyrie would have been able to pull this soul together, surely.

The being was still there, watching him with all of its eyes, in pain. r e a p e r, it whispered in his mind. t h a n k y o u.  
Loki folded the soul away quickly to end the agony in those eyes. They closed, and the empty husk crumbled into a multitude of feathers that the sun’s fire turned into glitter, further descending into the plasma.

He let himself fall backwards into darkness again.

Loki curled in on himself in the cool void, not quite feeling a body, but still, somehow, it felt like curling up into a ball, a small bundle of enormous grief and regret.

He could feel a distant, annoyed sigh and tried to reign in his feelings.

The deal had been based on the assumption that Death was ancient, all-powerful, and vain. She had always been here, she had seen everything - she was bored, first and foremost. Old, cold and indifferent to the point of cruelty, but most of all: Bored.

And Loki surely was entertaining. He could hear an echo run through the frayed mess of his memories: Magic, fun and stories!

He couldn’t quite pinpoint who that voice belonged to, but the pain coursing through him spiked even more. 

Another annoyed sigh, then he was pulled out of the shadows and onto a small moon.

It consisted mainly of silver, which had been molten when it formed, then hardened and froze into a perfect sphere, small enough that the curvature of the horizon was clearly visible.  
Loki looked around, his head moving slowly like he was underwater. But there was no water here, no atmosphere even. 

There was nobody here to reap either , nothing at all, apart from a golden, tacky gauntlet, adorned with gleaming, colorful stones, lying on the ground, as if the moon was a huge silver platter.  
Loki could appreciate the irony for a second, but even the pang of amusement was there and gone again in the next moment.

He was here to GUARD, he knew, so he spread his stance slightly, the high black boots gleaming darkly against the silver ground, and held the scythe upright in front of himself, like a halberd.

The moon moved quickly enough through space that he could see the stars move - or maybe his awareness was slowed down truly significantly.   
Either way, the view was distantly pleasing. 

His own shadow passed over the gauntlet, and with a passing thought, he realized from the outline of it, that his hair was short, and sticking up here and there, two parts especially, like short horns.  
He wondered what his outfit was like, but the impulse of curiosity wasn’t strong enough to even look down at himself.

Stars moved, complete silence reigned.

Then a vibration passed through his feet, and he slowly turned his head to see the small spaceship that had landed close-by.

Someone exited the vehicle and came over in long, jumpy strides.  
Another quickly dying curiosity: Loki was standing firmly, the lack of gravity not hindering him in any way.

The figure was wearing a face-mask, but took it off once it stood over the gauntlet.  
With passing interest, Loki recognized the make-up: The Grandmaster had worn a very similar kind of blue stripe on his chin.

The shifty-eyed person looked around, then put the mask on again, calling out via open communications channel:  
“I see you, reaper! I’ll have you know, I’m immortal!”

A whisper of a memory: He knew that guy. Or he knew of that guy? It didn’t matter.

The gauntlet looked unharmed from being used by Loki, much different from Thanos’ mangled one.

IT WILL NOT HEED, Loki suddenly knew.

The guy turned on his heel to look around, then called out:  
“Yes it will! I am the Possessor, and I will gain the knowledge of the Infinity Stones!”

In a way, Loki could actually see the hairline cracks going all through the gauntlet. The damage wasn’t fully visible - he, after all, hadn’t forced his will on the stones, but rather begged, hadn’t he - but it was there.

The Elder, for he apparently was one, stepped forward and grabbed the Infinity Gauntlet. He quickly pulled it on and laughed maniacally.

YOU WERE WARNED, echoed through the silver moon, and the fissures in the metal started to glow, and the laughter turned into screams of panic, then agony.

“No, wait, we have a deal!”

But he had been warned by the appearance of the reaper. And he knew it, the panic in his eyes betraying him. 

THE DEAL HAS BEEN KEPT.

Loki stepped forward and swung the scythe.

This time, when he collected the soul, it formed a bright flame, with a deep red color. It made sense: Only a truly powerful being would even try for the gauntlet.

He could feel a cold huff of annoyance on his neck, and with a flicker, he folded the soul into the realm of Death.

He wasn’t sure if he was glad or not that he was then staying there, ever watchful, thoughts and ideas flickering out of his mind as quickly as they came up, and every move siruppy slow.  
But she’d already started to become bored with him, hadn’t she, and in the darkness, only pain and regret waited for him, so before this whole question had also faded from his awareness, the last blink of it felt like relief.

Stars moved, complete silence reigned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every comment feeds the flame and is SO VERY appreciated!!


	17. Bet on the dead pool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor smiled humorlessly. “What do we know of the heart and mind of Loki Liesmith.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright here we go!! My sincere appreciation for all the brave souls reading WIPs, suffering through cliffhangers and STILL cheering me on! <3 <3 <3

Clint didn’t get to warn Thor about N’Jadaka, since that debate exploded before those two had even left the airfield.

Dealing with the Asgardian refugees was on one hand much more complicated than Clint could have imagined, and much easier at the same time.  
Most of the world’s nations were actually scrambling to show Asgard their gratefulness - and to gain access to their knowledge and tech, Clint supposed.

When Thor inquired with Norway, they were welcomed with open arms.

There weren’t that many people to settle anyway, which was too sad to dwell on. But all of the Asgardians had absolutely no problem revering Loki as the saviour of the multiverse, albeit with a slightly ironic smile, most of the time. 

Clint heard the tale of Loki appearing at the rainbow bridge, offering them an escape via the ark. And he also heard of the production he’d made of his time impersonating Odin.  
Asgard seemed mostly amused by that, and was grieving with fondness in their hearts.

Thor... wasn’t.

It became clear very quickly that Thor was their biggest looming problem, right behind Hela. It was a good thing that Thor had Asgard to worry about, and his council was a bunch of great people, but Thor’s smile was brittle and hard, and his decisions were swift and ruthless.  
Meanwhile, Hela started fights with the Valkyrie, which created a lot of infrastructure damage in Wakanda, and which Thor had to break up with brute force.  
If she wasn’t antagonizing pretty much everybody, she wasn’t around, which made Clint even more nervous. At least Nat was at his side again, since their esteemed leader Captain Rogers was walking around with a seriously dopey smile on his face.

Although having Bucky and Sam back didn’t make Steve completely useless.  
He and Tony had the inner circle of the Avengers meet up, excluding Thor, including a few new faces, and they debated how much of a threat the Asgardian siblings might be now - Hela, Thor, and Loki respectively. 

Clint thought of the latter’s feverish green eyes and told them to watch the video.  
“I’d feel better if we knew where the gauntlet was, too. But that guy was desperate. I don’t think… I don’t think he survived. I think we should worry more about Hela… and Thor.”

Nebula, who’d struck up a friendship with Brunnhilde, advocated to simply get rid of Hela. Tony and Steve reluctantly both disagreed: Thor needed to handle his sister. They couldn’t interfere with the sovereignty of the brand new nation of Asgardia before its citizens had even moved onto their new soil.

N’Jadaka, who, as the assigned Panther for all External Non-wakandan ISsues (which Shuri delighted in telling everybody), brought up Friday at this point, who was officially removed from all Wakandan servers, but haunting basically every single gadget on the planet still.

As the Avengers assembly derailed at that point into a shouting match between Tony and N’Jadaka, which, granted, both seemed to enjoy immensely, Clint exchanged a few messages with Nat.

‘Thor clings to Hela’, Clint wrote, ‘because Loki is missing.’

‘No leads there’, Nat wrote back. ‘Hope wants to search for the gauntlet again, the same way they did before.’

‘Can they? Without Loki?’

Nat shrugged one shoulder without looking up from her pad, and slightly shook her head.  
Then she wrote:  
‘Nebula’s right. Hela is a problem.’

Clint nodded slowly.  
‘Let’s give Thor some time to find into his new life. I think the Valkyrie will escalate the issue soon enough.’

‘Hela’s stronger than Thor.’

‘I’m not so sure, especially not with all of us at his side.’

‘I’m tracking her. For now, she’s mostly playing with her dog.’

Clint smiled slightly. Of course Nat had found a way to get a bug on the Goddess of Death.

He added: ‘Loki thought she might want to go to NY at some point.’

‘Huh. Good to know.’

 

The evening before Asgard was scheduled to fly off to Norway, there was a large farewell party in Wakanda, and Clint asked Thor to join him for a drink in a quiet corner. Thor patted his shoulder and called him a brother in arms, but when Clint tried to tell him of Loki’s last moments, Thor said:  
“I watched the recording the Lady Friday provided.” Clint winced. Thor chuckled. “I assumed you knew.”

Clint mumbled: “No, sorry. I was waiting for a good moment to tell you.”

“Ah, don’t fret my friend. I do not fault you for not delivering that message sooner, it was cruel to give you that heavy a burden to begin with.”

Clint frowned at that.  
“I think he was-”

“Don’t worry about it any further.”  
And there it was, the strange coldness in Thor’s tone, nearly threatening. Clint’s mouth clicked shut.

Thor sighed and said: “My apologies. There are things… that I cannot afford to think about right now.”

“He didn’t just, make away with the gauntlet, I don’t think so”, Clint said.

Thor smiled humorlessly. “What do we know of the heart and mind of Loki Liesmith.”

Clint frowned harder and Thor shrugged and took a deep gulp from his drink.

Before he could answer, Clint’s bracelet vibrated, and with a quick flick of his wrist, Nat’s message could be heard:

“Alien vessel approaching. Brunnhilde asks that Thor better come asap. She says it’s the ‘Grandmaster’.”

Thor blinked slowly, then huffed a very, very tired breath.

 

Behind them, Wakanda was glittering and alight with laughter and lights and music. Above them, a clear sky full of stars.  
Before them, another spaceship, and a man in a golden bathrobe.

T’Challa stood in front, flanked by Thor and Steve. Brunnhilde, Bruce and N’Jadaka were there as well, as were Strange, Wanda and Hela.

The rest of the Avengers and associated fighters were on alert and close by, but hanging back out of view. Clint was hiding on top of the Commodore, with enough distance to have a good overview of the situation.  
His neck hair also liked the fact that he was out of reach of anything like the soul stone sucking in people, because such things happened sometimes now.

“Hello hello hello!” The Grandmaster was spreading his arms. “What a party! Who told you I was coming?”

T’Challa said: “You have asked for permission to land, we have granted it. You failed to provide your purpose here.”

The Grandmaster turned to one of the flustered women behind him and asked: “We asked for permission? Who- who asked for permission?”

One of them lifted a hand, shaking, and the Grandmaster clucked his tongue.

T’Challa said: “What do you want?”

The Grandmaster was smiling widely.  
“Well”, he said slowly. “I’ve gotten word that Earth was where the real party was these days, so I’ve generously come to be your benevolent ruler.”

N’Jadaka coughed a laugh. 

Thor asked with a wide smile:  
“So the revolution worked out, did it?”

The Grandmaster’s smile turned slightly confused, as if that much impoliteness was anathema to him, but Clint could see the sharp, dangerous glint at its edges.

Bruce sighed, then turned into the Hulk, who’d just recently rejoined them, once Bruce had learned that Brunnhilde was back.

The Hulk said: “NO RULER!”

“My champion!” The Grandmaster exclaimed happily. “How wonderful! I missed you! How nice, my champion is already here, my second best fighter, my two best ships...” He gestured at the Commodore and the Statesman behind it. “And the party already started!”

T’Challa took a step forward, but Hela whisked herself to his side and put a hand on his arm.

“This”, she said in a low voice meant for their earpieces alone, “is an Elder of the Universe. Stronger than Thanos.”

Clint could hear Natasha have everybody get ready for an imminent attack. She also asked Rhodey to contact Fury and Wong.

Strange stepped forward to T’Challa’s other side and said:  
“This is Earth. Earth does not have nor does it need a single ruler.”

The Grandmaster snickered. “Aww. I think you’ll be very happy with me.”

Hulk leaned forward and asked Thor in his best attempt at a whisper: “SMasH?” 

Thor shook his head. “Not yet.”

The Grandmaster spread out his hands, encompassing all of them.  
“This is cute, really. I mean, I-” He turned to look at them all. “You’re threatening me, aren’t you? What a delight!”

Hela said:  
“We don’t threaten. This is Earth, and this is Asgard. We have fought back and defeated the Titan Thanos when he was holding the Infinity Gauntlet.” She inspected her fingernails. “This week, that is.”

N’Jadaka asked: “Tuesday, wasn’t it?”

The Grandmaster seemed even more delighted. “Seeee? This IS where the party’s at!”

Behind him, his companions started sneaking away to the sides.

Clint lifted his bow and adjusted his aim to directly in front of the Grandmaster’s face. He distinctly remembered all his arrows avoiding Thanos like the Titan had had a force field, but a flash grenade in the line of view was probably still at least slightly annoying, he hoped.

Natasha gave order to ready, aim…

All the fighters on the ground shifted their weight a little, all but Hela, who was still checking her manicure.

The Grandmaster opened his mouth to say something else, T’Challa took another step forward, crouching down slightly, but then, between them, a flicker of darkness appeared, like a rift in reality, a tear in the fabric of space and time, and through that shadow, a tall, dark figure emerged.

Clint could hear Thor’s immediate sharp gasp, although he could surely only see the back of the figure.

Clint had a side view and recognized him immediately.

Loki was clad in all black, his hair cropped chaotically short as if with a dagger, two parts of it standing up especially, like short horns. His skin was greyish white, so bright it looked translucent, and the shadows under his eyes were so deep it looked like Hela’s makeup.

His eyes were glowing green, like Fenrir’s, who Clint had learned in the last few days, was basically a resurrected corpse. 

Loki’s long tunic had tight sleeves and a high collar, went down to his calves, and was bleeding over into the darkness he’d stepped out of.

In one hand, he was holding a large scythe. Quite a common one, without any of the flashiness of Hela’s weapon of choice. Clint actually owned such a scythe, back at the farm, and it had even been used once, when the lawn mower had broken.

The Grandmaster blinked a few times, then smiled.  
“Ah, Loki? Is that you?”

Loki took up the scythe and moved it to the side, preparing for a large sweep, his face emotionless.

“Heh”, the Grandmaster stumbled back. “I’ll have you know, I’m immortal.”

YOU BROKE YOUR DEAL, Loki said. Was it Loki who said it? Clint stared along his arrow, ice trailing down his back. Wasn’t there an even deeper shadow right by Loki’s side, like a washed out double exposure?

The Grandmaster gulped and lifted both hands. “No WAIT!”

Loki swept the scythe through the air, in a low, gentle move, very much like an actual farmer would, like Clint had moved his, close to the ground, running it through the Grandmaster’s legs, who went down on his knees immediately, gasping for breath.

Hela snarled:  
“Oh for fuck’s sake!”

“No”, the Grandmaster whispered, staring up at Loki, who slowly stepped forward, his left hand extended. Wisps of light flickered out of the Grandmaster and into Loki’s palm, accumulating into a small, bright flame.

“...wait…” The Grandmaster fell forward, on his hands, gasping for breath.

YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE LEFT SAKAAR. 

Clint’s frantic heartbeat was still trying to figure out who was talking, Loki, or the deeper shadow, and did it even matter, this was the actual fucking Grim Reaper, he wasn’t hallucinating this, right?

The last wisp left the Grandmaster, who was staring up at Loki in utter panic. Loki turned his wrist, and the flame was folded into the shadows.  
The Grandmaster crumbled to the ground.

Thor called out: “Loki!”

Loki slowly turned around, but not so much towards the people behind him, but to the rift of shadow in the middle of the open air. His face was still expressionless.

Thor jerked into motion, stumbling forward, trying to tackle him, but Loki had already disappeared.  
The rift closed with a sound like a soft, icy sigh.

Hela cursed:  
“UNbelievable! That little RAT!”

Thor was down on his knees, and Clint winced at the sound his earpiece carried over, a high, desperate whine, like a trapped animal.

“Right”, Tony said in the open channel. “What just happened?”

Hela was stomping over to Clint.  
“I need to go to New York.” She pointed up at Clint: “You! Fly me to New York!”

Nat said in Clint’s ear:  
“We don’t follow your orders.”

“Like I care!” Hela snarled.

Steve said: “That was Loki!”

“No shit”, Hela hissed. “The little fucker is her REAPER!”

“That’s what she got from him”, Thor rasped, still kneeling. “He dealt his own soul away.”

“You don’t get it!” Hela turned around, both hands aloft. “HER executioner! The second most powerful position in the multiverse, right after her own self! And HE managed to get it with his shitty little deal!”

“LOKI SAD”, Hulk said with an unhappy grumble.

“That’s because he’s an idiot hung up on sentiment”, Hela hissed. “I need to go to New York!”

“Fine”, Clint said with a frown. “I’ll take you.”

Steve said: “What? No you’re not!”

Clint shrugged. “I’m going that way anyway.” He typed a quick message to the Avengers-sans-Thor: ‘Loki predicted this.’

Steve looked down to read it, then glanced at Thor.

Nat was jogging over from the main entrance. “I’m coming with.”

An exchange of glances between the other players on the field, then Steve nodded, looking very unhappy with the situation at large. 

Strange said: “Can I catch a ride, too then?”

Hela threw her hands up again: “Whatever, let’s GO!”

 

Hela was a total pain during the flight. It was good that Natasha was there to play her like a fiddle. She got her to calm down when they started researching the current whereabouts of Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, for that was who Hela was after.

Deadpool had given SHIELD the slip, soon after the un-dusting, and the guy was particularly hard to track. Hela however appreciated Earth tech a bit more when they started using satellites and everything to try and find him.

Clint also sent out a few feelers via less savory channels, but the guy was laying low.

 

They stayed in Avengers tower for a few nights, since Strange refused to open the Sanctum to Hela - he himself moved there again after not even a full hour.  
Tony, Pepper and Peter Parker all came back to the city, before they even found the first trace. 

When he arrived, Tony took Nat and Clint to the side and reported that since Hela wasn’t there to distract Thor anymore, their resident God of Thunder was on to the fact that they were researching something regarding Loki here.

Tony said: “Only reason it took this long was because he went and got blackout drunk after Loki’s little reaper show. What does Hela want to do?”

Nat said: “She wants to talk to Deadpool. Apparently, he can help her get in touch with Death.”

“Uh, isn’t she like, the Goddess of Death? I’m sure somebody kept repeating that little factoid, who was it again, I can’t recall, Friday?”  
The AI refused to answer.

Clint said: “Hey man, if you want to ask her why she’s not doing it herself, be my guest, but let me grab some popcorn first, alright?”

Nat said: “She didn’t die, during Ragnarok. From what I understand, she should have died, but didn’t. I mean-” she shrugged. “Wouldn’t that be the main point of being the Goddess of Death: Not dying?”

Tony looked up in short contemplation then said:  
“Yeah you’re right, not important enough for a little Q&A. However, how do we know she doesn’t plan anything…” Tony wriggled his fingers, “...nefarious?”

“Also tired of the mumbo jumbo?” Clint asked him. “Remember the times when it was just about guns and stuff?”

Tony winced. “I do, but those where not good times, my friend.”

“Who’s looking after Thor right now?”

“Steve and our furriest little friend. So what do I tell them, keep Thor in Wakanda or let him come?”

Nat shrugged, looking to Clint, who said: “Let him come. Best fight the mumbo with the jumbo.”

Tony winced again. Nat lifted both eyebrows in something like being bored but also impressed.  
“You need a vacation, pronto.”

“I HAD a vacation. It was lovely. Then you all decided to punch each other.”

Tony smiled: “Oh right, how is Laura, your lovely wife?”

Nat said: “He knows.”

“He knows what, what is there to know?”

“Seriously? Was everybody in on that?”

Another of Nat’s shrugs. “Pretty much.”

 

They took to patrolling the streets at night, since Peter reported a sighting of Deadpool, although he hadn’t managed to catch him.  
Thor flew over from Norway, his people settling in there under Heimdall’s guidance.  
They therefore had a few people at hand to rotate for the patrols, and by chance, when they finally found Deadpool, Hela was accompanied by Tony and Clint.

“YOU”, Hela said, and immediately threw a large knife at Deadpool, making him fall from the roof he’d been strolling on.  
Tony cussed Hela out for that, while Clint went to the crash site, behind some dumpsters in an alley. Classic, he thought.

Deadpool was groaning audibly. Clint hopped up on the closed lid of one of the large dumpsters and said:  
“Hey man. Sorry ‘bout that. You’re avoiding us.”

Hela swept down and stood over Deadpool, who said: “Not all of you, just Mrs. Murder here…”

Hela stared down at him.  
“You will tell Death that this will not stand! I am the Goddess of Death, and if any being in the multiverse deserves to stand at her side, it surely is not some upstart Jotun cuckoo thief!”

Deadpool groaned: “... whaaat?”

“SHUT UP.”

“I broke my spine, Mrs. Addams, that huuurts!”

“Wait”, Tony asked. “How is he supposed to get that message to Death?”

Clint winced as he realized he’d put that together quite a bit sooner, and hadn’t even questioned it, morally. Maybe he was getting jaded.

“Oooooh Ironman!” Deadpool crowed. “It’s such an honor!”

Hela kicked him. Clint winced some more, and recited Deadpools impressive rep sheet in his mind. Talk about ledgers dipped in red.

“I said, you tell her that this will not stand! I will not watch from the sidelines, while this, this little SLUT flounces around as her actual REAPER of all things!! This is an outrage!”

“Yeeah...” Deadpool rasped. “Can you restrict that to 140 characters? No wait, 280 now, yay…”

Tony said: “Hela, can we huddle over here for a sec? Talk the gameplay through?”

Hela pulled Deadpool up by grabbing his suit at his chest and snarled in his face:  
“Tell Death that Loki of Jotunheim is NOT a suitable Reaper for her! Tell her I need to talk!”

“Uh…”

“Tell Death we need to TALK!” With a flick of her arm, Deadpool was suddenly speared through by several large weapons. Clint jerked back instinctively.

Tony called out: “Hela! What the hell!”

With another flick all of the weapons disappeared, and she pulled off Deadpool’s mask. Yeah, the guy was dead.

Hela straightened up again, crossed her arms and tapped her foot.

Clint exchanged a glance with Ironman’s helmet.

“Why don’t you talk to Death directly?” Tony asked carefully.

She smiled. “She is not easily outwitted, and all deals anyone has ever made with her blew up into their faces at some point or other. But I never tried winning against her. You can only ever win _with_ her.”

Tony made a universal sound of I-am-listening-attentively, while gesturing to Clint that this didn’t explain anything at all, did it?

“But to do so, I needed to distance myself, be utterly independent from her.” She crouched down a bit and took another look at Deadpool’s face. Her voice turned calmer, even a little soft. “I’ll never be her equal, but I can get as close as possible… You can only talk to her if you are a literal God, and you come to her willingly. I never did.”

“Yeah I don’t- uh, I don’t want to be part of that conversation”, Clint said, slowly backing away.

The shadows at the end of the alley grew deeper and colder. Clint felt his neck hair rise. Where there two small dots of green light?

Deadpool groaned slightly. Hela stood up again and kicked him.  
“So?!”

From the shadows, a tall dark figure emerged, swinging back a scythe. Hela snarled at Loki: “What the fuck, no! This is not what I meant!”

With a gentle sweep, the scythe went through her legs.

HELA, vibrated through the shadows behind Loki. AT LAST.

Loki took another step forward, while Hela was pulled forward as well. They passed through each other, Hela melting into the shadows, Loki sinking to his knees. The scythe in his hands faded away into shadows as well.

Deadpool coughed:  
“What a bitch!”

Tony landed and opened his helmet.  
“Loki?”

Clint stood up, bow still in his hand.

Loki laughed at the ground before him, a whisper of a sound, faint but unmistakably his own voice. He struggled up, Deadpool still gasping for breath on the ground beside him.

Loki was swaying a little, still far too pale, eyes still a little too bright, but the shadows receding, the unholy light in his eyes fading.

“I did it”, Loki rasped. “I won the bet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter coming up, in which Thor will totally welcome Loki with open arms and a light smile, right...? Right...........?
> 
> Also, come flail with me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com/)!


	18. No Rest for the Wicked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki felt his smile deepen, and he opened his arms: “Tadaa.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE THAT THE TAGS AND RATING HAVE BEEN UPDATED for the porn in this chaper!

Stark’s look was pretty much priceless. He stared out of his metal can like a being made purely out of suspicion, torn between gratefulness and the impulse to attack.

Clint was kneeling over Deadpool, who couldn’t quite move yet and was complaining that he wasn’t a dating service, thankyouverymuch.

Loki rolled his shoulders, closed his eyes and felt more and more alive with every second.   
He took a deep breath, appreciating the abominable smell of a New York back alley trash area to the fullest.

Clint asked: “Hela said that only gods could talk to death. So… please tell me Deadpool isn’t a god.”

Loki didn’t particularly feel the need to answer, until Stark poked his chest with a long, metal-encased finger.  
He opened his eyes again and shrugged. “You can have any living thing carry a message to Death. You just have to kill the messenger. Doesn’t mean the messenger gets to have an actual chat. ” He glanced down, then grinned. “She probably chose this one because she knew Death would like it.”

Deadpool blinked. “... uhm…. Yay?”

Loki could feel his grin freeze a little bit, and a cold trickle went over his back. Norns, that had been a truly close call. He’d actually been in her service, and she had- He frowned, cocked his head and said:  
“You’ll have to excuse me. There’s something I have to check.”

He could hear Clint and Tony erupt into protest, but he’d already turned around and let his own magic transport him. A careful, long exhale, then he reappeared on the moon made of silver, the gauntlet on the floor again, looking oh so intact.

Loki smiled.

He instantly turned blue from the terrible cold of open space, but the radiation was the bigger problem, he guessed. Frigga’s magic was already starting up on its own, healing him against the constant damage. He looked up, trying to determine the actual location, but the stars were utterly unfamiliar to him.  
Oh well, he could either follow the same lead the Possessor had apparently found, or assembly his stone circle again, he supposed.

In his right hand, the cold peaked strangely, and when he glanced down, a long whisper of shadow appeared between his fingers, like a washed out ink painting of the shadow of a scythe.

Ah, a standing job offer, was it. And possibly a warning at the same time, a ‘Remember, I am watching.’

Loki smiled wider and opened and lifted both his hands, which dispelled the scythe, then bowed deeply to show his appreciation and submission.  
With another turn, he transported himself to his next target. There were quite a few other juicy opportunities he had recently learned of that he wanted to check on.

 

When he finally reappeared on the landing platform of the Avengers tower, the main room was full of Avengers old and new, in the by now familiar state of heated but not actually very loud debate, with Steve in the middle, trying to conduct that particular brand of chaos.

Loki strode in, quite in high spirits, then stopped in the entrance, hands on his hips.

More and more voices tapered out and faces turned to him.

Thor was the first one to move, slowly walking over to him.

Loki felt his smile deepen, and he opened his arms: “Tadaa.”

Thor nodded slowly, then he was right there, and his large hand grabbed Loki by the throat, pushing him backwards out onto the landing pad again. Loki’s boots scrambled to keep ground contact, and both his hands were quickly holding onto his brother’s thick arm.

Voices came up again in protest, but Loki’s ears were full of white noise at the feeling of being choked. Then his feet were barely holding onto the edge over which Thor held him, all of his body above the abyss.  
Loki gasped for breath, and when one boot slipped, then barely managed to get contact to the edge again, he clung to Thor’s arm for dear life.

“Did you know you would survive?” Thor asked through clenched teeth, his eyes glowing white. Above them, dark clouds started forming.

“I didn’t! I didn’t! I hoped, but I didn’t know!”

“But that’s why you rescued Hela in the first place!”

“I, I saw the Valkyries, and we were chatting, so I asked, and she said they were a gift from Hela, so I asked if she had gone back to Hel, and she said no, she didn’t die, and she sounded, ah, angry about it, so I made her a bet, it was a, a spur of the moment idea, I had no idea if it would work!”

Thor leaned him backwards even more, an icy draft tearing up at Loki’s cropped hair from way, way down below. His feet slipped again and he squeaked: “Brother!”

Thor pressed out: “And on Svartalfheim, did you know there? When I was crying over you like a damned fool?!”

“I didn’t! If Sigurd hadn’t come, I might not have made it at all!”

“Sigurd?” Thor frowned.

“One of father’s guards, we made a deal too, Thor, I can explain everything!”

“And I’m supposed to believe you? When you let go and fell from the bridge, what did you think there, did you know you’d come out unharmed? Was it to punish me?!”

“Un- ‘Unharmed’?! I was angry, and in pain, and yes, I thought, if I die, that’s what he gets, if not - yes, it was a win-win, for me, but-”

“And my suffering, my grieving for you, that means nothing to you, does it! That’s what I get for loving you, is it!”

“Thor…” Loki frantically tried to get a better hold on Thor’s arm. “I, I didn’t, I didn’t know…”

“Bullshit! Bullshit you didn’t know that I loved you!”

Loki stilled and felt his heartbeat spike even more. “Loved?” he croaked out, stressing the end of the word. 

With a sound like a tortured animal, Thor pulled him back, then threw him onto the floor.

“I saw you die four times, brother, four fucking times!”

Loki didn’t even try getting up.

Thor leaned forward a little as if he’d taken a hard hit to the stomach, and both his hands went to his own short hair. He growled: “You could have warned me in the illusion, you could have said something after Svartalfheim, you could have stayed with me the first time, and none of this would ever have happened!”

“Well”, Loki said gently, leaning up on one arm. “Thanos would have happened either way.”

Thor straightened up again, and tiredly shook his head.  
“It matters nothing to you, my love. I thought I accepted that, on Sakaar, but no, I still felt loved back a little, even if by a god of mischief and chaos with an unhappy tendency towards betrayal.”

Loki felt shivers wrack his whole form, and tried to keep that from showing. He carefully stood up and said:  
“Your heart is the only thing that matters to me in all of the multiverse, brother.”

Thor laughed humorlessly.  
“Fine words. But none of your actions ever showed anything but the contrary.”

A harsh pulse of anger went through Loki’s head, like a dagger of migraine.  
“How dare you! Have I not brought back your kingdom for you? Have I not tried to save Asgard from our father’s folly, knowing full well that you would claim that throne after I had cleaned up Odin’s mess? Have I not sacrificed everything for you, again and again?! And you actually think - ‘UNHARMED’?!”

“How dare I?!” Thor was back at his throat, his furious face close enough now that Loki could see the lack of tears, and the much more concerning lack of full sanity.

Nonetheless, the fury was by now stronger than the worry.  
“All I ever did was for you, you fucking imbecile!”

“LIES!”

Loki blinked then laughed harshly, throwing his desperate amusement into Thor’s face. He’d actually forgotten that for a moment, but nowhere in his deal nor in his bet with Death was there any trace of the resurrection of his ability to lie.

Thor pulled him closer with a snarl way beyond fury, then they lifted off, the harsh wind of it making Loki pull in his shoulders and knees, cling to Thor, and press his eyes closed.  
Thick, icy drops of rain pelted them both as Thor carried them further away.

They landed somewhere in the middle of Midgardian nowhere, tall trees and boulders of dark stone all around them.  
Thor threw him to the ground again, and Loki started laughing again.

“Look at you”, he taunted Thor. “Clearly you can be trusted with the most intricate of plans!”

With another snarl, Thor was on him, one large hand pressing down on his chest, one thick thigh between his legs.

Loki choked on his laughter and stared up at Thor. Then a slow smile spread on his lips.  
Thor looked suddenly flustered and like he hadn’t quite planned to end up in this position.  
The growing frown on his face made Loki’s heartbeat deepen, and with a conscious decision, Loki let the mocking edge slip from his lips and lifted a hand to try and gently wipe that frown away.

Thor’s expression crumbled, and yes, there they were, the tears.  
“I saw you die again and again and again and aGAIN…”

“I know. I know.”

“And I- why didn’t you tell me?”

Loki snorted gently. “Which part?”

“The deal! The bet!” Thor flailed with the arm not currently holding his weight up. “At least partly!”

“I… there was…” Ah, yes, so he couldn’t lie that there had been nothing to tell, there had been no time, anything. Loki blinked and amended: “I’m sorry.”

Thor let his head hang until his brow leaned on Loki’s shoulder. Loki gently carded his fingers through Thor’s short hair and said:  
“I’m here now.”

Thor nodded slightly. 

Loki closed his eyes and decided to be brave once more. He inclined his head a little and pressed a kiss against Thor’s temple. He could feel Thor still.

Then Thor asked in a dry tone: “Seriously? Here? Now? After all this?”

“Hmmm, I do like it when you actually use your brain. Well. And your powers.”

Thor heaved himself up again, looked down at him and didn’t smile, but the corners of his eyes wrinkled in amusement.  
“And to think that I ever worried about the sick thoughts my mind conjured up now and again.”

Loki snorted. Then he purred: “Oh do tell me all of those, brother.”

He lifted up a hand and pulled Thor down into a deep kiss, lazy and desperate, filthy and sweet. Some thunder rumbled in the distance, and Thor mumbled something at Loki’s lips, but all Loki heard was more distant thunder.

The ground they were on was dry enough, but there were clearly too many clothes on them, so Loki waved them to their side, and a blanket beneath him. He wasn’t a total savage after all.  
Thor mumbled a disappointed protest, and Loki whispered between kissing Thor’s impressive shoulder:  
“You can unwrap me like a present next time.”

“Next time”, Thor agreed, his voice peaceful enough to make him sound slightly drugged. He was gazing down again, then lowered his whole weight on top of Loki.  
It felt incredible, all that hot hard naked weight on him, carefully restrained power contained in perfectly sculpted muscle. Loki felt his own body surge up to press even harder against Thor, and a moan fell from his lips.

Thor snickered, and Loki slapped his ass for that. He closed his eyes and conjured up enough wetness between his legs to prepare for what he desperately hoped this would lead to. Thor gnawed at his throat, surely leaving a row of marks, and mumbled:  
“You feel cold.”

“I’m not. You’re just very hot.”

“Hmm. Can’t disagree with that.” Loki could see him smirk from the corner of his eye and slapped him again. Thor snickered, then said: “Brother, I will assume that you can get away if you want to, yes?” He straightened his arms to get some distance between them again and said calmly:  
“For I am done holding back.”

“Thank the Norns”, Loki snarled. “I was wondering if I should transform into a more terran form to truly get you going.”

Thor shook his head in amused exasperation. Then he said:  
“Spread your legs for me, brother.” 

Loki knew his eyes widened at that, and for a second, a furious impulse to scratch his brother’s other eye out whipped through him. Then he let his head fell to the side and he did spread his legs further.

Thor’s hot hands caressed his chest and down to his stomach, then completely ignored Loki’s erection and swept over his thighs to their insides, until both his thumbs pulled at Loki’s hole, discovering the slippery lube Loki had conjured up there.

A breath was punched out of Thor. “Well”, he said in a low voice. “No question you want this very much, to be fucked into the dirt, hmm?”

Loki swallowed and closed his eyes.

“Oh no”, Thor smiled, and a hard hand at Loki’s jaw turned his head back towards his brother. “You are done hiding this from me.”

Loki blinked and swallowed. Thor’s hand was comfortably away from Loki’s throat, but he felt more trapped than ever before. He tried to avert his eyes at least, but Thor was staring at him with such intent, it was hypnotizing. Loki could feel his heart hammering, and he wasn’t sure it was an altogether good feeling.

With one last surge of defense he let his lips quirk and he rasped: “Make me.”

Thor’s eyebrows lifted and he nodded slowly.  
Then he threw Loki’s legs over his shoulders and both his hands went back to Loki’s ass, one blunt thumb pressing into him. Loki’s hands surged up to Thor’s chest, palms connecting with his pectorals with a sound like a slap, but it wasn’t meant or taken as a fighting move, just another anchor, while Thor didn’t even pause pulling at Loki’s tight sphincter, another thumb quickly joining the first.

Loki gasped for breath, his heart running even faster, and his head spinning. This was just over the edge of too fast, hurtling along the line between pleasure and pain, skirting this way or that again and again, and it was perfect.  
Loki threw his head back, his eyes closed, and moaned at the pure hunger spreading through his lower belly.

Thor laughed, delighted, then leaned forward, one hand holding one of Loki’s thighs, the other hitting the ground next to Loki’s face, as he pushed the head of his thick cock inside.

Loki felt his gaze drawn to Thor’s again, searching his face for any trace of mockery, but the laughter, the grin turning into a wide smile were simply happiness, nay, relief maybe.

“Stop thinking”, Thor urged him.

Loki could barely speak he was wheezing for air so badly, but his eyebrows still went up in unvoiced challenge.

Thor nodded in agreement, then punched the whole length on his erection into his brother. He didn’t even stop for a second, pulling out again, pushing in, quickly finding a rhythm of movement like a piston ramming down and forward. Loki clung to his shoulders and arms, grabbing whatever he could to hold on to, drowning in utterly, utterly overwhelming pleasure and pain and helplessness and safety.  
He could hear himself laugh, and distantly wondered at that.

Thor leaned forward again, both his hands hitting the ground again, which changed the angle: He was now pumping pure power into the desperate itch inside of Loki, pulling out ravenous greedy pleasure, and Loki’s dripping erection slapped against Thor’s hard stomach now and again - not enough for consistent stimulation, but another point of sweet torture.

For a moment, Thor stopped moving, just their loud gasps in the silence of the woodlands. Loki was wracked by full-body shivers, his trembles hard enough to make him jerk against Thor.  
Thor lowered his brow to Loki’s and whispered his name.

No words came to Loki’s mind, his hands still scrambling to hold on to his brother. He blinked and stared back into Thor’s intent gaze, his breath hitching again and again.

Thor smiled slightly, a kind of tired amusement mixed with peaceful warmth. Then the smile turned darker, and he whispered:  
“I’m close, brother. If I pump my seed into you now, that won’t be enough for you, will it? You will simply keen and shiver for more, won’t you…”

Loki’s eyes closed and his head rolled back as a high whine escaped him.

Thor laughed helplessly, then started moving again, just as punishing a rhythm, just as mercilessly deep.

It did feel slightly like death, a very distant part of Loki mused. No thoughts to hold on to, no plans or agenda, nothing to cling to or aim for, just floating in emotions and, well, the sensations were the overwhelming difference. It felt like the opposite of death, maybe. Like being fully alive for the first time ever.

He could hear his breath hitch, the keening that seemed to drive Thor slightly mad, and he could feel his muscles spasming and his hands grabbing for Thor, all very much without any decisions on his part, and he could feel a slow smile spread over his face, his heart beating deep, but calmer now, calm, while Thor made a deeply animalistic noise and his hips jerked helplessly, heat spreading further deep inside of Loki’s guts.

Thor collapsed on top of Loki, whose legs fell open again, letting Thor’s quickly softening erection slip out. The weight of him was crushing, and still Loki’s arms did nothing but pull him closer, breathing be damned.

Thor’s hand wiped back the hair from Loki’s forehead and then he kissed him again, slow and possessive, Loki barely managing a coherent response, much less any kind of counterattack.  
His own cock was rock hard, still trapped between them, his stomach muscles spasming uncontrollably, and oh, he knew what wetness was seeping out of him.

Thor heaved himself up again and then went back on his haunches, staring.

Loki didn’t even think to look away, just let his arms fall to the sides, shivering.

Thor looked… humbled. And a spark of something nearly conscious rushed through Loki’s mind, making him frown slightly. Then Thor started smiling again, and Loki’s frown disappeared like thoughts in death, already forgotten.

“Look at you”, Thor muttered. “I’ve seen you desperate before, brother, but not like this…”

He let his knuckles graze Loki’s erection just slightly, making him keen and surge up as if his muscles were pulled by a puppeteer.

The hand wandered to Loki’s hole, two fingers scissoring into him. Thor made a sound as if he’d just tasted an amazing drink, looking down at Loki with eyes half-closed.

“Look at you…” he mumbled as if to himself. Then he crooked his fingers, and Loki’s muscles spasmed again.

“Thor, please!” Was that his own voice? It seemed unrecognizable.

Thor smiled, his other hand caressing Loki’s jerking stomach as if to calm down a frightened horse. “No brother, I will do as I please”, he said in a low voice, and all Loki could do was keen again with every hitching breath.  
“That’s right.” Thor encouraged him. “Just take whatever I give you and let me enjoy you to the fullest.”

His fingers inside of Loki were mercilessly massaging this swollen ball of nerves, punching jerks through his muscles like he was gently electrocuted. Loki distantly supposed he wasn’t really, after all, there were no sparks but behind his own closed eyelids.

“That’s it”, Thor mumbled. “Look at you, not even thinking to go for your own cock, are you.”

Loki took to long to process that, Thor already added: “Just letting me have you. That’s what you need. And I got you.” He smiled: “Just let me play with my new toy for a while…”

Like a shock of white light, the pressure on his prostate seemed to expand through Loki’s whole form, wracking him with what was the slowest start of an orgasm Loki had ever experienced.

“Really, Loki? Is that what’s doing it for you? Being my sextoy?” Another shot of pure white lust jerked through Loki, but he teetered on the edge of losing it, of losing his grasp of the edges of the highest climax ever, just out of reach.

Thor’s other hand went from his stomach to his chest, holding him down, and then suddenly, heat engulfed Loki’s cock, wet, shamelessly slurping heat sucking him down hard, and down and down, and with a spark of fury Loki wondered for a second where Thor had learned that, and with whom, and then the light drowned out any last dredges of consciousness and wave after wave of screaming pleasure rushed through him.

 

He came to with his brow against Thor’s shoulder, sitting up, half-dressed already, Thor currently trying to get his tunic on him.

When he pulled Loki back a bit, he met his gaze and said: “Hey. Welcome back.”

Loki blinked, then averted his eyes. Quickly a small frown marred his brow. Thor put the tunic over Loki’s head, then helped him get his arms into the sleeves.

“Don’t”, Thor mumbled. “Give this a moment longer before you think again, hmm?”

For a horrible second, Loki felt like bursting into tears. Thor pulled the tunic down, then carded his fingers through Loki’s hair, pulling his head against his shoulder again. Loki felt his own hands come up to grasp at Thor’s sides - Thor himself had already been fully dressed.  
There was very little stickiness left between Loki’s legs too, Thor must have cleaned him up.

“Just breathe”, Thor mumbled at Loki’s temple and pressed a kiss there. “Please…” he added. “Just, please don’t regret this…”

Loki chuckled and felt Thor’s shoulders relax slightly.

“I don’t”, he finally croaked out, and his heart was screaming in some kind of echo of the desperate hunger his body had gotten satisfied just before.

Thor nodded, then took a deep breath and said:  
“We should have done this ages ago.”

“Norns… can you imagine? If we’d-”

Thor gave a low laugh. “We would have done nothing else.”

Loki snickered as well, then sobered up quickly. “Do you think that’s what Odin… what father planned for, originally? When he took me?”

“Like in the soul dimension?” Thor leaned back and stood up with a groan, stiff like an old man. “I think you overestimate his ability to strategize in that kind of moment. You probably were just cute and helpless, and he was tired from the battle.”  
He held out his hand to help Loki stand up as well. His legs were wobbly, but complying.

“Maybe so”, Loki agreed softly.

“Does it matter?” Thor pulled him close again, both hands on his shoulders. “In the end?”

“Yes”, Loki smiled sadly. “It does. You and I grew up side by side, but we lived in different worlds altogether…”

“True”, Thor nodded. “Mother did always prefer you.”

Loki startled and stared at Thor, but before he could even gather his own emotional reaction to comprehend it, much less to voice it, Thor already shook his head.  
“I apologize, that was not a good joke, and actually not much of a joke at all. I just… I never minded for a second. And maybe I should have... “

Loki could actually watch Thor switch gears. He stopped whatever he’d meant to say next and grinned: “To be honest, I still kind of expect you to stab me. I wondered the whole time.”

Loki rolled his eyes.  
“All that just to get close enough to stab you? Please, as if that would warrant that much effort.” Perversely, his smile was proud though. Thor truly had learned a few things after all.

Thor nodded, then sighed and visibly had to make himself ask:  
“Loki… do you know the location of the gauntlet.”

Loki felt his eyes widen again, Norns, he still couldn’t lie, which Thor might or might not have guessed, but then he was startled into laughter as he could honestly answer:  
“I do not.”

After all, he didn’t need to know a location to get to a space he’d been in before. And in this case, he truly didn’t, did he.

He grinned, his heart feeling slightly easier, not so much because of this answer, but more because of the question Thor had thought of to ask.

“You still trust me so little?” he poked Thor right where he’d once stabbed him, in New York, and Thor actually shied away a little, then let go of Loki and rolled his eyes.

“I trust you to be yourself”, he then said, with a smile. Loki felt his own smile die as he stared at his brother in some strange, desperate hope.

“Hey”, Thor said gently and cupped his face in one hand. “Do you need some more time?”

Loki blinked, then shook his head, pulling himself together with a deep breath.  
“Actually, I was wondering, are the Valkyries back yet?”

“...what?” The confused frown on Thor’s face was just too adorable.

“I might be shit at deals, brother, but I am very good at bets.”

“Don’t… don’t joke about that…”

“Death keeps her promises, and we bet that if I could get Hela to come to her by her own free will, she would release all other Asgardians from her service, which would be me, but also the Valkyries. So.”

Utter delight spread over Thor’s features. “You’re serious?”

“Well, yes!”

Thor pulled him in a hug, laughing brightly. “Gods, you’re the best!”

Loki hugged him back and allowed himself a small, unseen smile, hiding his face against Thor’s shoulder. He would take care not to ruin this. And if Thor kept his side up, keeping vigilant like he truly should always be, they would be fine, wouldn’t they.

Thor was babbling something about Brunnhilde and Asgardia and possibly some kind of training regimen, and Loki snickered, conjured up a small knife, and drove it into a meaty part of Thor’s back.

His brother’s roar was furious, yes, but also still full of laughter and, well, now that Loki knew to listen for it, he could also hear the exasperated love. 

Loki hightailed it back to New York with a twist out of Thor’s grasp. 

Thor had some Valkyries to celebrate with, and Loki needed to speak to some choice individuals, about two lovers trapped in a soul dimension, about a gauntlet in an, ahem, “unknown” location, and about a few other things that would guarantee Asgardia’s future to be prosperous, and the safety of the planet earth to be assured.   
After all, he was trapped here, now, too.

The smile spreading over his face felt giddy and fragile and utterly, utterly new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... I wrote this because I needed to fix it, I'm posting it because I am a dirty, dirty comment addict, so consider leaving one!! And if you already have: THANK YOU! \o/
> 
> Also: come flail with me on [tumblr](http://fanfuchs.tumblr.com)!


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